Crafty McCrafterson: Why am I Always Covered in Glitter?

We're in the post-Thanksgiving-blitz-to-Christmas! I made a pact with LAS II that I'd wait for him to decorate this year. So here I sit, day after Thanksgiving, waiting, while he sleeps. The LSU vs. Arkansas game is blaring loudly from the tv in our bedroom and I don't know how he can sleep over the noise (not to mention suspense). But bless his heart, he's on the night shift at the hospital this week. So while I was eating broccoli casserole and turkey with my family last night, he was at the hospital. While he's catching up on z's, I decided to start on one Christmas decoration I knew he wouldn't want any part of: A Very Glittery Wreath. 

I never get involved in that black Friday nonsense, partially because I hate crowds, but I did shop on Thanksgiving. When I was on my way back to Lexington from my aunt's house I stopped at a very convenient Michael's craft store in Frankfort. It's right off the interstate and they were open until 10. The crowd was light. I needed some ribbon for today's glittery project. I gave in. And I was glad I did! I purchased all the items necessary for my front door wreath.

The color scheme in my house for Christmas is green (sage), brown, and gold, with some poinsettia accents here and there. I had a ton of green and gold ribbon left from the roll I bough to wrap my tree. But I needed some accent ribbon to make a wreath. I bought a chocolate glitter roll, a gold glitter roll, and a cheetah roll! WHAT? Cheetah for Christmas? I saw this ribbon at Michael's a few weeks ago and knew I had find some way to incorporate it into my scheme.

I started this wreath the same way I started my Halloween Wreath. I bought a much smaller hay wreath form, because I knew the ribbon would add some height. I don't have a lot of room between my front door and storm door! I bought some sage green yarn and wrapped the entire wreath form in it. I found a perfectly coordinating brown sparkly pine cone at Walmart for 97 cents that I tied to dangle from the center. Then I started adding the ribbons.

Cut about five inch sections of ribbon. To pin the ribbons, get some straight pins. Instead of making a singular roll of ribbon, I like to bunch my at the ends. Stick the pin through the ribbon and directly into the wreath. At first I thought, this looks terrible. But once it starts filling in, it looks great!

I used four colors of ribbon, and I think it turned out nicely. You could do more than four, but I think any less just won't do. Let this serve as a warning that I am covered in glitter. My kitchen table is covered in glitter. The floor around my table is covered in glitter. My dog is covered in glitter (not really. Once I started taking pictures, she left the room. She hates cameras). You too will be covered in glitter if you use glittery ribbon. You could use other varieties of ribbon to avoid a mess, but I'm just a sucker for glitter. Happy Christmas, ya'll!

ADPi Time: Welcome to the Neighborhood

As I write this post, I am sitting in the kitchen part of the living quarters of Alpha Delta Pi Memorial Headquarters, looking out over Ponce de Leon Ave. My return flight to Lexington does not depart until later this evening, so I have some time to introduce you all to the neighborhood that is Ponce.

First, I was in Atlanta this week for another Alpha Delta Pi technology discussion, this time for our website. If you all get a moment, cruise over to the current ADPi website and tell me what you like and hate about it in comparison to other Greek organizations. K? Thanks. 

When I was in college, I just assumed that the ADPI "Headquarters" was some office building. I didn't consider where it was located, what part of Atlanta it was in (I didn't know if I was supposed to put the "NE" on the Ponce de Leon part of the address when I mailed off a form, or if it went in front of Atlanta, like NE Atlanta...), or really, just who worked there. Did the International President (Or Grand President, as she was called way back then) live at Executive Office? (No. She lives in her own normal home wherever that might be.)

So let me take you on a little tour of Ponce de Leon.

Alpha Delta Pi Executive Office is located in the posh Druid Hills neighborhood. And if I lived in Druid Hills, yes, I would want my future children to go to this darling school...

Springdale Park Elementary School, or SPARK, as they affectionately call it.

So let me show you some of the houses on the block. 

And they do a lot of decoratin' for Halloween...

It was a lovely visit to the ATL, and I shall return again for more technology madness in November. 

Before I made my way down to Atlanta this week, I drove up to Highland Heights, Kentucky, specifically to Northern Kentucky University, to participate in an Alpha Delta Pi expansion presentation.

Expansion is the name for the process when a college decides to add a new Greek chapter on campus. A team of Alpha Delta Pi alumnae and collegians presented to the current NKU Greek community. If we are awarded the opportunity to colonize a chapter at NKU I can see myself being very involved in this process, as they are right up the road from me! This will result in more travel, but also more excuses to blog:)

Now, I must sneak in a quick power nap before I head to the airport. Posh and lavish as the Druid Hills 'hood is, it is also very scary sleeping in this big old house by yourself...so I didn't get much sleep last night.

Recruiter on the Road: Nashville

Ok, so whoops. This entry is a lil' bit belated. Instead of blogging about work I've taken the last week to...
1. Clean my atrocity of a closet
2. Have a life and enjoy some Keenland time
3. Make my husband real, actual, dinners
4. Do a bunch'a ADPi paperwork
f. other stuff

Now I will catch you up to speed on my life as a recruiter, and the final installment of my blog series regarding the see blue. Preview Night road show aka my life for that past seven weeks.

I'm not going to lie, it has been super weird coming into the office everyday this week. Not getting to stop on the side of the highway to snap a shot of a barn. Not typing away on my laptop while eating a Bacon Turkey Bravo at Panera. With a Chocolate Chipper. Not scanning a hundred radio stations. Not wearing jeans most of the day.

But it is so good to be HOME.

Our last see blue. Preview Night was technically held in Franklin, TN, not Nashville. Who doesn't love a good visit to Nashville? Well, Franklin is even better because it's got all the Southern hospitality, less traffic, and more charm. I happened across this little park right across from our event at The Factory in Franklin.

This little park, equipped with BARNS. 

Hello, I just made Rebecca's day. 

Oh, didn't I tell you? Rebecca loves a good macro shot. 

I'm just wandering around...wondering why people are setting up tents. Then I pass one filled with navy and gray coats. And I realize this park is getting ready to be the site for a civil war reenactment. The Battle of Franklin reenactment, to be exact. And when the dark clouds rolled in and the rain drops started to fall, I bid adieu to the park and hightailed it across the street to our event site. (Ok, a few more pictures)

So, The Factory. 

I love this site for several reasons.
A. It is beautiful--rustic and classy at the same time.
B. It is always the last stop on the preview night tour, thus signaling the end of my evening working hours for a while.

Farewell, Preview Nights! I am going to be real honest right now and say that I've made a pinky-promise-pact with two of my colleagues (who shall note be named) that we won't be back for round #4. That we will have moved on to some bigger career/life aspirations by August 2012. This will require patience on my part, listening on my part, and a lil' direction and guidance on God's part.

So I promised a best a worst list. Here you go:
Best Pillows: Homewood Suites, Buckhead, GA
Worst Hotel Stay: TIE: Hampton Inn Pikeville and Embassy Suites Blue Ash, OH
Best Hotel Room: Hotel Arista, Naperville, IL
Best Hotel Breakfast: Hampton Inn Hopkinsville
Best Barns: TIE Maysville and back-roads-drive from Hopkinsville to Owensboro
Worst Photo Opps: Columbus
Best Prospective Students: Naperville, IL
((Don't want to say WORST--so...)Maybe UK Shouldn't Come Back to This City for a Preview Night Next Year: Pikeville, KY
Best Conversation with a Waiter: Kevin, Pizza Hut, Maysville

Sigh. It's been real. It's been fun. But it hasn't been real fun.

ADPi Time: Technology

I'm safely tucked away in the Embassy Suites of Franklin, Tennessee today...working on cleaning out my email inbox and scratching out "to-do" items in my Lilly Pulitzer planner. I won't get much time to explore Franklin before our event tonight at The Factory. Our. Last. see blue. Preview. Night! The last event of travel season! Whoop!

Before I take you to Alpha Delta Pi Executive Office, let me back up to the Marietta Hilton, where we had our Marietta see blue. Preview Night.

This hotel was decked out in southern paraphernalia, including a cannon and several Confederate looking portraits.

Who is this lady??? She looks eerily familiar. I had to check the founders' room at ADPi Executive Office because for a second I could've sworn she was a founding member of the Adelphean Society. She isn't. And I asked the lady at the front desk of the Hilton. She didn't know.

If you haven't heard, UK is over Football season. Over it. We are turh-a-bull. As such, one of our staff members made the chip clip display into Rupp arena, instead of the standard Commonwealth Stadium recreation. Bring on Big Blue Madness this Friday night!

So back to ADPi Time. In addition to my duties as one of the Total Membership Education Directors for District II...I am also Alpha Delta Pi's Technology Committee Chair. We are currently shopping for a new database to store our membership records. As it happened, the meeting with our preferred vendor happened to fall during the week in which I was to be in the ATL for work. When does my schedule ever align like that? Never. I was super scared I was jinxing myself. That I would end up stuck in traffic on 75N and miss my work event or something.

I was a bad little blogger and recycled this picture from my trip to Executive Office in April. I didn't get a chance to get out and take pictures of the magnificent neighbors on Ponce de Leon Ave. I didn't get to take a picture of Spark...the school I would so send my future kids to if I lived in Druid Hills ATL. I didn't get to take pictures of the ginormous houses in Buckhead, near where I was staying at the Homewood Suites. ((Reported: These houses are HUGE. And there are tons of these huge houses. I asked one of our consultants from Tracepoint what these people living in these huge houses do for a living to be able to afford such accommodations. He said Usher lives in one of them. Oh. So that's that.))

I didn't get to do any of these things, 1. Because it was raining, and 2. Because I did not have time. ADPi keeps me plenty busy. In addition to being in meetings for technology all day, I somehow got roped into stuffing folders for an expansion presentation that I am attending at the end of this month at Northern Kentucky University. And sticking a box of said folders into my car to transport back to KY. Anything for the good of the cause, right? 

We live for each other!

So what was I discussing while sequestered in this little room for three days?

All of our hopes and wishes and dreams. Really. Well, from a technology standpoint. It may be over your head, so I won't spend too much time on the gory details. To put it simplistically, we looked at the way we operate as an international organization, and how a piece of software can make our lives a whole lot easier so our staff doesn't have to keep up with 87 million spreadsheets in order to keep our member records accurate and accessible. Period.

Now, I told you travel season was over after tonight. And...IT IS. For my "real job," that is. I will be traveling back to EO in ATL several times over the next few months as we continue the conversation about sorority technology. So yes, more travel is in my future. But there are worse places that I could be visiting. Speaking of worse places, for my final see blue. Preview Night installment of 2011, tomorrow I think I might have to do a best and worst list. Hmmmm... Ideas forming.

I did have time to eat lunch at two great spots in Atlanta, Vortex and Bad Dog. And I had a great dinner with our consultants from Tracepoint at a place called Kyma. Fun fun fun times. I do love my life.

Seriously? How cool is this place? Looking forward to more nights at home with LAS II, possibly a little Keenland action this weekend, organizing my travel-season-hurricane-of-a-closet, oh, and Tim Tebow starting for the Denver Bronco's this weekend!

Recruiter on the Road: Atlanta

My seasons are all messed up. Last week I went to Chicago and packed for fall; it was 80 degrees. This week I am in Atlanta and packed for summer; it is rainy and 65 degrees. I just can't get it right! I made a long drive to Atlanta even longer by driving up to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. Saw Rock City. It was a bust. Not a single barn! Luckily I saw a few on the drive through Kentucky.

What a beautiful fall drive!

No barns in Rock City, but their mascot is an elf, which was fun, and I found some other cool signage.

And I found a fireworks store with the coolest of old ferris wheels!

While heading back to I-75 toward Atlanta, I ran across this old building, which I had to drive on a restricted access road to get close enough to...whoops!

I've been at Alpha Delta Pi Executive Office all day for technology meetings (more on that tomorrow), and this afternoon I'm headed to Marietta for the see blue. Preview Night! Does someone have a hot tip on the See Rock City barns and where they are located? So bummed I missed them!