two years today.

open for the parakeet who is colored bitter lime.

One of my favorite quirks about Oleander as a child was (and still is) the cracked and crooked sidewalks. My grandmother and I would walk to the corner market every weekend I stayed over to pick up a Coke slurpee and red vines. Sometimes, if I was REALLY good, I got to ride my pink Big Wheel trike over the bumpy and hilly sidewalks. Other times I'd take 5 minutes at each street to try to make out the contractor's name in the cement.

Another thing I distinctly remember growing up were the parakeets that live in the big tree near the house.

These rose-ringed parakeets are one of my FAVORITE things about Oleander. I know the distinct sound they make in the mornings, even a few generations later. Now that I'm living in 321, I'm blessed with the luxury of looking out the window right after the sun rises and seeing these little guys bask in the warmth while I'm drinking coffee. 

Revamp and Declutter

Hi there!

I know it's been forever and a day a while, but here I am. You know that feeling when all of a sudden you don't want to clean a room and disregard it for days...weeks...months because you don't want to deal with it? That's me...in blog form. I was tired of the design, tired of the mess, tired of EVERYTHING that I didn't even want to come on here because it's a huge pain in the neck.

Well, I revamped my so-called-life in more ways than one.

I redesigned the site and made it fresh and clean looking.

I decluttered all of the photos to make it searchable.

I deleted a ton of phone numbers that I've had for godknows how long.

Heck, I even reorganized my RSS reader.

Most importantly, I've reorganized my hopes and wishes and thoughts. I always seem to get so overwhelmed when I try to think about renovating because there's SO much to do. I've come to realize that I need to write my thoughts down, room by room, so I have a crystal clear view of what I want.

Which also means there will be more blog posts. ;)

I have a few posts brewing this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

less stuff, more happiness.

By now, most of my friends know I'm a huge TED enthusiast. 99% of TED talks inspire me in ways that books and television just can't do. They're usually between 5-10 minutes long; just long enough to completely grasp the concept and just long enough to not get me bored or have to take a break.

My latest fave is the one above: Less stuff, more happiness, by Graham Hill. Graham is the founder of Treehugger.com, a site featuring news, solutions, and product info of all things green and eco-friendly. This particular talk definitely hits close to home (bad pun, I know)...MY home. It's just little ol' me in this 3 bedroom, one bathroom house, but before me it was filled with six lively people: four girls, one little boy, and one strong mother. My family has really only lived in small, moderate homes that weren't too big or too small for the four of us. We have consistently lived in more of an upper middle class neighborhood, so the majority of my friends in school came from doctors and homebuilders and business owners. Which almost always had big extravagant houses that didn't really have a sense of...coziness.

To each their own, I guess. And my own is modest.