Good Laughs, Good Eats, Good Lessons {The Weekly Round-Up}

♥ Look at these super cute birdies that Ashlie Blake over at Painting Bliss is working on!  She's even selling them in her shop!  Soooooooo adorable!

♥ Much Love Illy shared a fantastic post about how her haircut is not just a haircut, and how it reminded her about letting go-especially when it comes to plans you expected that didn't happen.

♥ Life According to Steph shared a recipe for Ga-gun Ga-Gung Chili that looks tasty!  Yum!

♥ SmallnHot shared a post about why we need to apply toner.  I haven't used it before-good info!

♥ Life and Lemons wrote a great post called Why We Work which lists some great tips for couples and also anyone who hopes to ever be a couple.  She's a great example!

♥ Jenn from Thoughts, Rants, & Art cracks me up... Especially when she compares her baby to an Ewok.

♥ Amber Nicole shared her recipe for Puff Balls (which look kind of like donuts) and look TASTY!

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Share your favorite reads this week!

The point of The Weekly Round-Up is to focus on other people instead of just another post about ourselves.  It's to build better community, share insight into what we love to read, and hopefully introduce you to a new blogger you'll love and adore!  Wanna play along?  Write a post with links to your favorite blog posts from others throughout the week, put the button in it, and link up with us on Sundays!

I Dream of Handmade Fairy Boots

Have you heard of Gipsy Dharma?  If you haven't yet, be prepared to be filled with some serious want as you read the rest of this post.  I am dying from the beauty that are these handmade leather boots-they slay me.  The colors, the style, the craftsmanship-AMAZING.

I'm a barefoot girl myself-I'd prefer to be shoeless for as much of my life as I can-so I love that this brand was created by a girl who wanted to share a love of going "barefoot" while still wearing shoes.  They have super flexible (yet long-lasting) soles on them and laces that allow you to completely adjust how they feel on you so that they wear like a second-skin.  These are breathtaking!  The colors!

Aside from making boots any gypsy or hula-hooper would drool over, she also makes gorgeous handmade clothing too!  Most of her cute little belt skirts match the boots-it's incredibly whimsical.  I can only imagine that wearing these soft shoes and free-feeling clothing makes you feel remarkably like a pixie dancing about...

I'm adding so many pairs to my wishlist right now... Oh didn't I mention you can actually buy these?  Visit Gipsy Dharma's catalog to see all of her current styles and colors! I'm so in love!

Life Lately

I just realized I haven't written a personal post in quite a while.  Phew, February has been so extremely busy!  Here's a little update on life lately! I'll break it down into some categories so I can play catch up.

Last weekend was full of fun!  On Saturday Ken & Kristina texted me to see if Josh and I wanted to go to the Natural History Museum with them to see the Chocolate Exhibit! It was a lot of fun to go through and wander around with them and the kids-and honestly, awesome just to get out of the house for a bit.

Then on Sunday night I went up to Ken & Kristina's to spend the night.  Kristina, Ashley, Courtney, and I crafted the evening away-they were headed to the Walk the Earth Concert the following week (tonight actually) so they wanted to make galaxy shirts.  So I joined in just for fun.  We also made some fun plates.

Monday was spent shopping and playing with the baby-I love days off from work where I can go play! 

Also, I booked my plane tickets to go to Oregon for Spring Break!  I could not be more excited... I miss the ocean so much!  Oh and Mr. Bingo, I miss him too-so it'll be nice to go visit.

Recently over at Chaotic Goddess Swaps we had our Books 'n' Bloggers Swap.  That one is always a favorite, and we were surprised to get nearly quadruple the amount of swappers we usually do!  So exciting!  

I was paired up with the awesome and ever-sweet Harlynn from Mind Your Madness!  That girl is crazy-cool and she sent me some awesome books as well as some handmade bookmarks (which my goddaughter Kailee promptly stole-and I had to fight her just to get the two I liked most back-so I don't have photos! lol).  She got me The Artist's Way (from my wishlist), Hush Hush (A book she hasn't read but sounds interesting), and Looking for Alaska (A book she loves-but is also on my wishlist yay!)

Also in case you didn't notice we just announced the Mug O'Comfort Swap with an awesome giveaway too! Sign-ups start Monday over at Chaotic Goddess Swaps.

Currently here on My So-Called Chaos we have a lot going on.  Voting for the final round of the Best of Blog Awards, a big 5 Year Blogiversary Giveaway, a $25 Sephora Gift Card Giveaway, the Musical Monday's Giveaway, and so much more coming up!  Stay tuned!

School might just be killing me... But I'm getting by.  I've decided I really don't care for my Hybrid English class... I would prefer it just be in class or just online-instead of having all of the homework for online class (like 5 papers a week) and still having to meet with the professor during the week.  Boo.

I was struggling with French this semester because she's going a lot faster than my last professor did, and then we go into passe compose and all of it's rules and gah.  I got a C on the first test.  A C.  I got pretty much all As last semester.  Such a let-down.  BUT my professor is awesome and lets you take it home and redo parts of it for half credit-so hopefully I bumped it up to a B! We had our second test last night and I think I did much better on it.  I'm also getting much better at understanding it and also being able to carry ona  conversation.  Josh and I try to tell each other about our days in french to help me learn.

Work has been crazy busy.  We introduced a new tool-and as always there are a bunch of kinks to work out that result in a harder time for a while.  Also Shawn (who's the only other person managing the email queue with me) was out most of last week due to bronchitis so playing catch up has been fun.  Oh well.  I'm looking forward to Spring Break when I have a week off of both school and work and will be in Oregon by the beach.  LOVE! 

On another work front, I'm working on some new ideas for my Etsy shop.  I hope to reopen some time in the next few months with a whole new product line.  Yay! 

Ugh.  I'm pretty sure I gained back everything I lost... My shirts don't fit as well, I feel more sluggish and sick than I have in the past... Mostly I've put a bunch of really crappy food in me.  But I'm getting back to my juicing & smoothies-just keep chugging along... 

So I got my tax return back... Yeah it was pretty nice, who knew being a student earned you such a good rebate?  The smart thing to do would be to put it towards my student loans I'll eventually have to pay back... But am I going to do the smart thing?  Nah.  I paid off my credit cards, I booked my ticket for Oregon, and I'm going to finally by my DSLR!  Ok, so some of those can be construed as smart still... Like paying of the cards, booking a trip that will keep me from burning out or losing my mind, and also the camera can be used to further my online business!  Score! 

But I've also done a hefty bit of shopping in the last little while...  I went shopping this past weekend and bought a new coffee table & 3 new pillows from IKEA, as well as some 600 thread count Egytion Cotton Sheets (HEAVEN!) and a new book.  I also picked up these awesome prints at the auction for CFPU a couple weekends ago.

I also received these awesome goodies on trade!  Yes, I do some trade now!  Love it!  The eyeshadows are from Printcess and the gorgeous art & bookmarks are from Patric Bates.

What have you been up to?