WIENERS.

So apparently National Dog Day is a thing. I had no idea. Being the mother of two naturally beautiful wiener pups (one is a dachshund mix of some kind, but whatever), I have decided that this adorable holiday will be celebrated in the most obvious way: FLOODING THIS POST WITH PHOTOS. Wiener photos. So my last post was entitled BALLS. If you are offended by the direction of my post titles, just forget about it & LOOK AT THESE DOGS, YO.

Baxter & Layla.

Baxter was rescued in 2008, at the tender age of one year old. HE CAME FROM THE STREETS. This dog is hard. Not in a red rocket fashion, thankfully. He was super skinny & we nursed him to the plump state he is in today. Baxter enjoys cuddling, his sister, cuddling his sister, squirrels, attention, his mom, & dog bones. He is a resilient pup that overcame paralysis of half of his body due to calcified discs on his spine, & a surgery to remove NINE kidney stones. AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE TOUGH. He is a needy, stinky little sweetie pooh, though. I love him.

Layla was rescued from a shelter in 2009. Just a shy little baby at 6 months old, but so sweet & friendly. Layla enjoys cuddling, her brother, cuddling her brother, squirrels, attention, her mom, & dog bones. She is also a resilient pup, having survived a SUPER traumatic collar entanglement with a friend's dog. Seriously, the worst night of our dog-mom lives. Dogs choking, bleeding, fear-pooping & peeing...it was terrible. This may be why Layla is quite jumpy. I'd say she is a good mix of fearless & jumpy, if there is such a thing. She has the softest fur & the stinkiest breath. I love her.

Thank you for learning about my fur babies. Pretty soon (in approximately 5 weeks) you will be enjoying &/or annoyed with pictures of my REAL baby. All over this here place. GET IT, GIRRRRRL.
xoxo, Jenna

WARNING: Very picture heavy!

Today was a relaxing yet exciting day. I have a lot of photos to share with you because of that, so be patient! First off, I finally finished my mini update...


CLICK TO VISIT MY SHOP! :)

Now that that's out of the way, I have something important to tell you. My oldest nephew, my little baby nephew Ethan, turned 14 today. Let me say that again, f o u r t e e n . I told him he's gross. 14 year old boys are gross. Haha. He knows I love him so much. That's so very strange to me. I'm 10 years older than him (I'll be 24 in October), so I made sure he knew how "old" he made me feel today. No, I don't think I'm old, but it feels so strange to me to think I have a teenage nephew. I told him last year on his 13th bday that he was gross then too. I know; I'm such a nice aunt. Actually, I'm his favorite, & he has a lot of aunts on his Dad's & Step Mom's sides. So HA on all of them. I talked to him for a good 30 minutes, & it made me realize how much I really miss him. He lives in Missouri & I'm in Texas. Doing grown up things makes it harder & harder to travel with my family, so I haven't seen him since 2007 :( That makes me so sad. I will see him in August though, along with the rest of my family. I'm excited! I taught Ethan about all of the important things in life, like poop, farts, & that I'm the prettiest girl in the world. He better remember all of that. I feel the need to post some pictures of my nephews now, so I shall indeed...




a Photos in my bedroom of the first time I held Ethan (1995) & Louis (2000). b Holding those beautiful boys again, back in 2003, when I had jowls. & awful hair. c Being silly the summer of 2005. I know; my tongue is ridiculous man! d Summer of 05 again. My nephew is adorable, & I don't know why he looks like a turtle in the photo.



e & f Christmas 2005, with Ethan, then Louis. I discovered the brightness & contrast feature on Paint Shop Pro around the end of 05. Can you tell?



g Fighting like gangsters; Christmas 05. h My nephews were cute Christmas of 2006, but my toupee hair was NOT. i & j I guess Christmas of 2007 is when they decided taking pictures with me wasn't cool anymore :( haha. I LOVE THESE BOYS! I love their Mom just as much. I'm praying for her. She's going to be going through something tough the next few days, so even though you don't know her whatsoever, it would be nice if she could be in your thoughts, at least a little bit.


Guess who else celebrated a birthday today? My good ol baby dog Baxter turned TWO! That's fourteen in dog years, so Ethan & Baxter celebrated the same birthday together...but apart...and they've never met...neat? I don't know. Anyway, we went to the Arboretum & took the puppies for an hour long walk. It was HOT but they loved it. The squirrels drove them nuts. I took some lovely photos...




This totally happened.








I don't know what kind of plants those were up there...but they are damn pretty, aren't they? I know, I know. Wonderful. You know what's NOT wonderful? The fact that I was on such a good roll with going to the gym...then I didn't go for 3 days. I felt so guilty! Two of those days I thought the gym closed later than it did. Who closes at 10 on Fri & 8 on Sat??? LA Fitness, apparently. Oh well. I went back tonight just in time to run for 45 mins. I ran 4.11 miles & burned 458 calories. I know I can do better, so I wasn't TOO impressed with myself, but it was way more worthwhile than not going at all! Then, when I came home in an awesome mood, made an awesome smoothie (I'm telling you people, you need to add Medjool dates! AWESOME!), checked my awesome email, I saw I had an awesome message from an awesome Etsian! My friend Amy from SparkleRocks told me that I was on the front page again! AWESOME. I will stop saying that now; promise. It's been a long time since I've been on there, & sales have been slooow, so I was excited. I checked Etsy & I happened to be on at that moment!



Then, I sold my little deer dish! I was happy yet sad at the same time, because I love it so much. It was inspired by my puppy Baxter, so how appropriate that it was featured & sold on his bday! Right? I know. Neatooo. The buyer was also a sweet mama named Alexis who happened to feature me on her blog, The Posh Passy.
THANK YOU, ALEXIS! Her blog is adorable, so make sure you check it out!

That's all for tonight, folks.
Jenna :)

PS-I LOVE YOU BIG SEESTER. You are in my thoughts, always. I wish the best comes out of this shituation.

Happy Fasha's Day!

I mentioned yesterday that my boyfriend went to visit his Dad for Father's Day. Well, the puppies laid on the ground by the front door for a bit waiting for him to come back. How sad/cute is that?! I had to take pictures of them.



How adorable is that? Seriously. Well last night was the first night staying all by myself in this house. It was very strange. I love time to myself, but it was a little weird at night. The dogs kept barking at things & since there were a few "break ins" (technically they just walked in to unlocked houses!) in the neighborhood a couple weeks ago, it freaked me out. Not real bad style, just a little. I slept with a baseball bat next to the bed for protection. haha. You know, I figure that if I'm protected in some way then nothing will happen. No baseball bat, & I'm in danger. And Christopher always sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the door, so he would get raped first in the event of a rape attack (NO I do not think rape is a joke whatsoever, I just figure boys sleep by the door for protection & peace of mind!...piece of mind? Which is it? Oh nevermind). I just had to take precautions. Wouldn't it be cool if a burglar came in the house, & I say, "If you want to steal my shit, you have to play me a game of baseball first. If I win, you leave. If you win, take it all, buddy." Then we play & I win. I love saving the day. That sounds like a movie plot. Can baseball be a two person game? Shows what I know about sports. Good thing there WASN'T any form of burglar confrontation mixed with baseball challenges last night, huh? I would've been in trouble. I promise I did not smoke my breakfast. Good Lord I am strange.

Moving on. A few days ago when we took the dogs for a walk, a bigger dog found us & wanted to play. He was so sweet, but he was WAY too big to play with our dogs. They tried to play, but he scared them. Layla ran around & wrapped the leash around my leg. I got a gnarly rope burn near my ankle. It's red & itchy which usually means infection I think, but I keep using hydrogen peroxide on it & Neosporin. The dogs love the taste of Neosporin, by the way. They keep trying to lick it. Gross. Maybe that's why it's red & itchy?! Once Baxter ran around very excited and wrapped around my leg, leaving a deep (deep for a rope burn at least) scrape in my knee pit. You know, the back of your knee. haha. These things are kind of dangerous. Check this out...

Losing a Finger
Heather Todd lost a portion of her left index finger in a Flexi retractable leash accident in 2005. Her yellow Labrador retriever, Penny, was hooked to a friend's retractable leash when the dog became excited. The 90-pound dog bolted after something and Todd said she lost control of the handle, which caused to cord to burn her arm. When she instinctively tried to brush the cord off her arm, Todd said her finger got caught and she was pulled to the ground and dragged for four or five feet.

"I look up and there's a finger tip right in front of me," she said, adding that she was in such shock she at first thought the finger was a child's Halloween-type toy. "I didn't comprehend, 'Oh, Heather, there's your fingertip laying there in the sand.'" Found here.

Gross. Super gross. There's a caption on a picture of a girl who suffered vision loss when the leash hit her in the eye. AHH. That's awful. Poor girl. Here's my little booboo that doesn't nearly compare to vision loss.



I would like to talk about something good & not lethal now. I wanted to post this last night, but I literally fell asleep while typing. haha. You might have seen Margaux Lange's jewelry featured before a few times, & you know what? I don't care if you've seen it a MILLION times, because it's still worth mentioning. Check this stuff out. She is one incredibly talented little lady. In 6th or 7th grade I used to think that I could sell Barbie heel necklaces. I decked them out in glitter & rhinestones (go figure) and nearly killed my fingers poking holes in them to put jump rings through. I was pretty inventive at the time & I sold a couple of them at school...but Margaux really knows what she's doing. And she makes my Barbie heel necklaces look like dog poop. So we've seen Barbie's accessories repurposed, but the actual doll? Pretty cool. I just imagine handcrafting all of these perfect pieces takes some patience, man.



Tonight is the second & last night by myself, so maybe I'll add a tennis racket to my bedside collection. Let's see what happens.

Love your friendly neighborhood sports battle enthusiast,
Jenna :)

EDIT::: I should probably write something about my Dad since it IS his day, after all.


My silly Dad, William.
He is a witty, clever, funny funny man, a "Computer Nerd"/Genius, a complex yet simple fellow who can definitely make you giggle if not laugh out loud. There are so many times when I hear myself say something, & it solidifies the fact that he definitely lost a part of his brain & gave it to me when I arrived in this world, because that's what happens when you have kids. Didn't you know that? They take a piece of your brain. Well your sanity, I'm sure. I am definitely his child, & I love that. My brother Steve (SHTIVEN!) & I are so glad to have equal parts of both our Mom's & Dad's personalities. They are great people & I love them. But it's not "Parent's Day"; it's "Father's Day". I LOVE YOU DAD! Thank you for being the odd, silly man you are, because I wouldn't have you any other way! Thank you for the unconventional way you taught us lessons to make us remember not to do the same dumb shit over and over (even though we probably did quite a few times). Thank you for preparing me for parenthood in the future. Thank you for carrying me upstairs when I was "little", even though I was a damn heavy kid. Thank you for getting on your knees to dance with me to "Talking Heads" when I was a toddler. Thank you for capturing our AWESOME funny kid moments on video, because otherwise we just would have to guess how awesome we actually were. Thanks for being my FASHA!



Don't worry Mom; Mother's Day has come & gone but I know how wonderful you are & I know when your Birthday is! One day you will get an entire paragraph dedicated to you & your greatness. I love you!

xoxoxoxoxoxo,
Jennaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

PS-I ran again today! 5.67 miles this time; 505 calories bizzurned, holmes. SUCK ON THAT.

No white shoes after labor day!

Every season I think we all get stuck on a certain color trend, & sometimes it fades with the season, but other times it sticks around...Or am I just tired & don't know what's what? WHAT'S GOING ON?! AHHHH! Now that I'm done doing that, I can get down to bidniz. All this color & season talk makes me think of the movie "Serial Mom" when she kills Patty Hearst's character, who, in my opinion, went through enough in life without having her character KILLED. With a PAY PHONE.

"712 F*** YOU!" "Ooo-eee, ooo-eee" (imitating bird calls). I love when she sings "Day break" while the cop is chasing her. Ohhhhhh goodness. So many great scenes. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to see Serial Mom. It's great. Kathleen Turner is awesome in it. I love John Waters movies. How creepy is he though? Ultimate creepster for sure.

Ok, back to business for real this time. Pinky swear. I was really loving combinations of yellow & gray in the spring, which is what inspired the color block tote I created a couple of months ago (can you spot it in the collage!), & I'm still really feeling it. I think several years ago Michael Kors had a collection with some pastel yellows which I absolutely loved. I don't know; I don't really pay too much attention to things I can't afford. Here, on the other hand, are some lovely things that we all can afford!



1 "Coal - Print" by amberalexander
2 "5 x 7 - yellow buttons on gray canvas" by UglyScientist
3 "Gray and Yellow Dip Cup" by upintheairsomewhere
4 "Lemon Chiffon Notebook" by RedOtter
5 "s a l e. pastel color block tote with braided strap." by jennamichelle
6 "we drive all day, print" by gretchenmist
7 "un deux trois necklace, enameled" by enamored
8 "Yellow Birds on Gray Tiles" by LuckyBluebirdArt
9 "Egg scarf" by CresusArtisanat

You know what else is lovely? LOVE. That's right, LOVE. And I am IN IT. I am not afraid to talk about it. I used to be one of those people who thought love & all love related things were GROSS. Not for everyone else; for them it was cute. For me, nah. I recall gagging out loud to the concept of a relationship when one boy brought it up. I also once told a boy that I would throw up on him if he brought me flowers to work like he said he had wanted to do. That's rude. R U D E. I'm rude. Well, I was. I started dating Christopher, & we both took each other seriously right away. Sounds cheesy, but I "knew". I really did.


My boyfriend cries when I kiss him. haha.
I love him so much. I don't care if that's gross to you. You hear me? I DON'T CARE. We've been through a lot, & he is one of my very very best friends & favorite people. We have a million nicknames for each other, we tell each other "I love you" every 5 minutes, & we function happily as the little family unit that we are (with our puppy children). He's my beautiful baby man, & while I was on my little hiatus from blogging, we celebrated our most successful milestone yet...Our one year anniversary :)

He was double coursing at school, going almost 14 hours a day. Our one year falling on May 7, which was a school day, he would get home at almost 9pm so going out to dinner was virtually a no go unless we were counting on McDonald's, which we weren't...I don't think vegans have a lot of choices at McDonald's anyway. I got crafty with some Christmas lights, old drapes, & a makeshift table (not in the pictures), & I came up with this...




A little outdoor restaurant! I made dinner (not worth mentioning...I tried my hand at some makeshift drunken noodles. Christopher liked them, but he was probably being nice) & dessert (a vegan brownie with non dairy ice cream melting on top mmm), & set up candles. I was convinced the drapes might get set on fire because it was so windy, but everything was ok. And it was pretty. I wish I got some better shots of our silly "romantic" outdoor dining experience. You get the idea though.

What else did I neglect to inform you about in May? Aha...Mother's Day! I made a dish previously that I showed my Mom & she loved, so I decided to make her a similar one, in her favorite colors.



I wanted her to actually use it! There are a ton of things she could use it for...

Instead, she wants to keep it on top of the desk in the kitchen, along with all of our other creations. Oh well, it's her present. If she wants to set it next to a shitty lighthouse I made in 8th grade, that's her thing, man. That's her dream, & I won't destroy it. Man I'm tired. haha.


I have 2 other dishes available in my shop right now! You can find them in the housewares section. The little deer was inspired by one of my puppies, Baxter (the brown one). He curls up like a little baby deer sometimes. I love my little ones. Check them out, all cuddlin n shit.



Don't you just want to squeeze them? In a totally cute, non violent way? I know, me too. That's all for tonight, ladies & lads.

Peace & fart grease,
Jenna!

Great. Now I'm thirsty.

Glitzer has awarded me with the Lemonade Award!



The award is for wonderful blogs demonstrating great attitude and/or gratitude. I love being complemented, but awarded? Sweet ass! :)

Rules for the award:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate 10 blogs that show attitude and/or gratitude.
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know they have received this award by commenting on a post.
5. Nominate your favorites and link to this blog.

And the nominees are...

1. Little Lovables - She just seems like a sweet little lady & I commend anyone who is a stay at home Mom of 2 boys & manages to run a successful shop.
2. Freckled Nest - I love the look of her blog, & Leigh-Ann loves silly & adorable things! She's also extremely talented!
3. Knotty Baby Wear - This lady really loves kids & you can tell. Babies all over her blog! She is another stay at home Mom with an awesome shop!
4. life of a bird - Estela's shop is just as adorable as she is! She recently moved into a cute house with her boyfriend, who gave her her own craft room just as mine did. Sounds like we have ourselves some keepers.
5. pecannoot - Jess has a great blog full of cute prints & paintings she's discovered, & she happens to be an artist herself!
6. rubypearl - Ok not only is this silly lady incredibly talented (she makes things I can see in my head but can't make come to life!), but she is hilarious. I can't stop reading her blog once I start!
7. shiny little things - She seems like a busy lady! Between 2 shops (here & here), posting tutorials & fun pictures on her blog, writing books...wow. I envy you!
8. Sounds like tomatoes - Kearsie is a hilarious mommy of 2 silly girls. I could've sworn she had an Etsy shop as well, but I can't find it anywhere! Seriously though, read her blog. You might not be able to stop!
9. Smile Monsters - Jo is the cutest little Mom! She seems sweet & has a love for crafting, music, & her kiddos, among other things. Her shop is full of really cute items, & sometimes she even posts tutorials for similar items on her blog!
10. Lula Boutique - Her blog is just as sweet & cute as her shop! There are always pretty pictures to look at with bright colors & touches of vintage.


Be sure to visit Glitzer's shop!


This Sweet Forest Bird Necklace is my favorite item in her shop; it's so dainty & girly.

This was a pretty sweet deal. I ramdonly checked The Etsy Front Pagers Photo Pool on Flickr the other day, & I was on the Front Page again & had no idea! No sales came from it, but I noticed I received a lot of hearts on that day, and that's always a good thing. Here's the screen shot; can you spot me?



It's my little baby deer inspired by my little boy puppy! He looks like a baby deer when he curls up in a little ball. It's the cutest thing ever. EVER!


"Fawn in the grass painting." $20.

The inspiration...

This picture is hanging above our bed, next to a crappy camera phone photo of Christopher & me that I tried to pretend was fancy...


I know, I know...GROSS! Whatever. I think we're cute. And he hates having his picture taken, so this is the best I have of us together, so far. Now Layla needs her picture above the bed, since we all 4 sleep in it!


Yeah, you can tell I need better pictures of her too. This is the most in focus one I have so far. I love my little family :)

It would be nice if this whole front page thing happened, I don't know, like...every day! No, every hour of every day. Yeah...YEAH! Then again, if that happened, it wouldn't be as exciting anymore. It's such a nice feeling when it happens. Yay for Lemonade Awards, Front Pages, & Pups.

And always remember...
"When life hands you lemons, throw them at people."
-Jenna Finke

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?!?!

I have been MIA and I apologize. AGAIN. My boyfriend has actually been home the last 3 weeks (he is usually at school for almost 14 hours a day!!!), and we have been enjoying our time together. Our puppy has been enjoying it also. I have to get a big girl job of some sort, and our poor pup has been spoiled with so much time with his mom, and he hates being alone now. We are probably getting him a friend (another wiener dog) tomorrow morning! FINGERS CROSSED THEY GET ALONG & LOVE EACH OTHER OR IT'S A NO GO! We got a beautiful little baby! I'm so excited to show you my new family...


The journey of Baxter & Layla's friendship.


This is Baxter, aka Poopers, Pupperton, Puppertonino, Pooter, BRD (Brown Red Dapple), when he was a happy little gentleman. He was my only baby.


...but Poopers was sad; he wanted a friend!


So we took a trip to the animal shelter, and adopted a beautiful 5 month old girl named Palin.


Baxter wasn't really havin this. Maybe he hated her name. So we changed it to Bella, and then after I randomly sang an Eric Clapton song out loud, she became LAYLA!


They began exploring and playing (videos coming soon), & soon Poopers was attached...


DOG FASHION. R U D E. Rude. Don't worry; they're both fixed & he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Air humper.


They play so much that they sleep a LOT. It's pretty cute.




POOPERS + LITTLE ONE = THE BEST OF FRIENDS.

Ahh, I love her already! They really are adorable. I kind of miss Poopers being my only baby, but I will get used to this pretty quickly & so will he.

Besides enjoying the weekdays together, we have been doing fun stuff on the weekends too. Fun stuff used to consist of getting wasted face & blacking out. It now consists of doing "boring" grown up things, like getting library cards, going grocery shopping together, taking our dog for a walk, etc. I actually love doing these things now. I bet a year ago I wouldn't have thought I would be saying something like that now.

A couple of weekends ago, my wonderful boyfriend Christopher, Baxter (the awesome sausage dog), & I went to The Mercer Arboretum & checked out nature. I never used to do things like this, & I am really starting to love Spring, TX the more we explore it. Our neighborhood is absolutely adorable, & there is a little "beach" behind it! I will have to take some pictures of it, but I'm obviously a procrastinator, so who knows when this will happen? So anyway, nature is awesome, & I have some pictures of it...





There is also another new thing in our lives, something that I am getting some really weird reactions about...We are newly vegan, as of about February 21 or 22. I'm still getting the hang of this. At first, it was about being healthy (my body doesn't love dairy that much anyway), & finally being on some kind of diet AT THE SAME TIME as my boyfriend! I used to not want to watch videos on the conditions that the animals live & die in, because I loved hot dogs & chicken too much. I realized choosing to be ignorant was pretty selfish. I wouldn't want to lecture anyone though. Choosing to learn about all of this made me cry & cry. I just thought of someone hurting my own dog in that manner. It honestly was enough. Moving along...


Sooo the other weekend I made these cookies (I got the recipe out of some book from Borders that I can't remember the name of!) & they were pretty good, but the dough was AWESOME. We couldn't stop eating it! Plus there aren't any eggs in it, so I can eat it all I want...MOM! She always told me not to eat cookie dough cause I'd get worms...?


There you go! *In case you are saving the picture to print, there are TWO images there.*


I went to San Antonio last weekend to see my friend Athena's baby girl. So so cute & perfect. Her name is Riley Ann & she looks just like a tiny version of her Mommy!

She's the intellectual type. Always thinking.

Here are some other happenings as of late...

I made these necklaces for this girl Andrea's bridesmaids. NINE bridesmaids! I don't think I even have 9 girl friends anymore. Shit. She was really sweet so I made her a custom necklace as a surprise! :)

Here are 4 bridesmaids necklaces for another bride, Carrie. She was super sweet as well and also got a necklace from me as a gift! I really like the way the packaging came out...




Here's a housewares project I'm almost completely finished with for my shop. I love these branches.

Little flowers yeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Ok, so I was on a brief hiatus, yes. I have bribed you with puppies, babies, flowers, & cookies. FORGIVE ME? Yay. Thanks. :)

Happy Tuesday Errrrbody.
Jenna :)