Stephanie

January 3, 2014June 29, 2022

South Mountain Hiking

Living in Phoenix can inspire this ongoing dialogue with yourself.

Me In September: It’s still hot. Why do I live here again?

Me 2 Months Later: Oh. Right. Now I remember.

The weather has been so beautiful the last couple weeks. It just makes Phillip and I (and probably the rest of the Valley of the Sun) want to go out and soak it all in!

One of our favorite places for a spur-of-the-moment hike is South Mountain. It’s not far from us, there are tons of not-too-strenous trails, and we almost always see some kind of interesting wildlife.

The 16,000-acre preserve is actually the largest city park in the country with miles of trails crossing the natural landscape.

And that’s where we went for a little impromptu hiking Christmas afternoon. We definitely weren’t the only ones with that idea. There were actually a lot of people out on the trails.

At one point, we heard coyotes yelping in the distance. I looked around and realized all the other hikers within eyesight had also stopped to listen. We took a side trail to the top of a little hill and counted at least three coyotes racing up the ridge across from us.

hiking South Mountain — Ridge where we saw coyotes. There’s probably a teeny one somewhere in the photo.

We continued up the dirt road that’s now closed to vehicles, past the wide space that used to serve as a parking lot and up a hill. You could see all the way across the park, across the rest of the Valley, to the Superstition Mountains, sitting east of the metro area and glowing pink from the sunset.

We took it all in for a few minutes before heading back.

By the time we got back to the trailhead, there was already one bright star shining down on us. For Christmas night in the desert, that somehow seemed fitting.

December 30, 2013December 30, 2013

Make a fort for kid guests

On Christmas Eve, we hosted an open-house style holiday buffet. While that may not seem to fit in with our theme of simplicity, it was actually a great way to see both sides of the family at once and then spend a quiet, unstructured no-freeway-driving Christmas Day.

We don’t have a ton of space, so making sure we had room for everyone required creative thinking and looking at our place from a different perspective.

There will be another post about how we made the buffet work. Today I just wanted to share the idea we came up with to give our littlest guests a space of their own during the party. We called it the Christmas Fort.

To make it happen, I cleared out everything under my desk (been needing to do that anyway), which is in the living room. I removed the power strip and covered the outlets on the wall behind it, put a blanket on the floor and threw in pillows to make it comfy cozy, and then added toys and books that were safe for the under 3 crowd. (Thanks to my mom for sorting our toy box, while I did some last-minute cleaning.) The final touch was a tablecloth over the top, both to increase the fort feel and because the desk doubled as a snack station.

You could do something similar with any very sturdy desk or table. Or you could create a kid nook in a little corner where there’s not stuff they could easily injure themselves with or damage. (I know. Kids are creative too – they’re great at inventing ways to get hurt and/or destroy things. Just try to make their space reasonably safe.)

In fact, I’d originally planned to move an end table and create a kid nook between our couch and some bookshelves, covering the shelves with either some festive fabric or drawing paper. Then I realized we’d have to lose that nook to make room for the Christmas tree, so I went looking for an alternative and decided to put the unused under-desk space to work.

Overall, the reactions to the Fort were pretty good. My 2-year-old nephews were in and out. My little cousin said it was an “awesome place” and was so excited about it she made her mom get in too. (I’m sorry I missed that!) Some friends we hadn’t seen in awhile stopped by later in the evening, and their kids basically had their own party in there, giving us adults a chance to catch up.

At the end of the day, after everyone had gone home, we had to try it out ourselves.

It was a nice place to be.

***

P.S. When I was looking for under-desk fort inspiration, I came across this more long-term solution, using the same Expedit bookshelf/desk combo I have. If you’re interested, you’ll find it on Ikea hackers.

December 23, 2013December 23, 2013

Last-minute Christmas guide

If you’re still checking items off your Christmas to do list (no judgment!), here’s a list of quick links from here and around the internetz to help you get it all done – whether you DIY or not!

For those of you who are completely and totally done with your Christmas stuff, consider this a head start on next year. For those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, you have plenty of time to pour yourself a hot beverage and read through my entertaining past blog posts on travel and/or crafting.

Wrapping and cards

Make gift bags from brown paper sacks
Creative gift wrapping with materials you have around the house
Gift tags upcycled from holiday greeting cards
Washi tape cards

Last-minute gifts: super-quick DIY gift ideas

Make a set of blank gift tags and tie together with ribbon
Jam jar snow globes
Personalized Sharpie mugs
8 Ornaments in 8 Minutes

Last-minute gifts: where to shop

Arizona gift guide
Find an independant bookstore near you.
When all else fails, send an electronic giftcard. (Amazon will let you schedule the delivery date.)

Decorating

8 Ornaments in 8 Minutes
Use tree trimmings to spruce up your place
Wreaths you can make

Entertaining

Holiday finger food ideas
How much food and drinks to serve at a party
Specifically, how much wine to serve
And for dessert, Nutella cheesecake dip (!)

Cleaning up

How to clean your kitchen in 15 minutes
Speed clean your bathroom

Travel and packing

Have fun and happy holidays!

December 17, 2013

DIY upcycled gift tags

I tend to forget about gift tags. At any given time, I probably have a decent stash of wrapping paper, gift bags, tissue, and ribbon. But somehow, I never think to buy gift tags. And then I’m wrapping Christmas presents and think “hmm…everyone would probably like to know whose gift is whose.”

The good news is there’s a really simple fix for this. You can easily upcycle holiday cards or envelopes with festive stamps into gift tags!

Here’s what you need…

Holiday cards (or other festive paper)
Paper cutter or scissors
Pen and/or letter stamps or stickers to say who it’s to and from
A way to attach your tags to your gifts (any of these will work):

Tape
Stick-on bow
Hole puncher plus ribbon or twine

Optional:
Deckle-edge or scalloped scissors
Corner rounder

1. Cut the front off the card.

2. Cut the front into thirds for nice, big tags. This is great if you write big (like me), need to fit lots of names on a tag, or need the space for stamping. You can always cut it into smaller pieces if that works for you.

3. Optional: Do any corner-rounding or edge cutting before you go any further. In case something gets wonky or uneven, you can still cut off the edge of the tag with the mistake and try again without messing anything else up.

4. If you’re going to attach your tag with ribbon, punch a hole near one of the sides or corner.

5. Write who the gift is to and from on the back of the card. If you have time to stamp to and from, that looks great and still very personal. If the back of your upcycled card isn’t blank, you can use letter stickers to label it.

6. Tie or stick it on to your gift. Slip it into the gift’s ribbon or under a stick-on bow, or use a little ribbon or twine to tie it to the handle of a gift bag.

And that’s it! I’ve also made gift tags from parts of envelopes with festive holiday stamps, event programs, and fliers.

This is a craft you can pull together at the last minute. Or, take a stack of last year’s holiday cards and make a bunch assembly-line style while you watch your favorite Christmas movie or chat with a friend.

December 14, 2013

Glendale Glitters

Last weekend Phillip and I decided to check out the lights at Glendale Glitters, the annual holiday celebration in the antiquey downtown of Glendale, Arizona (just west of Phoenix). On Friday and Saturday nights, there are also local dance troupes and singers performing at a main stage, food vendors, booths for local charities and retailers, and lots of activities for kids. Several of the retailers and restaurants stay open late (including a couple of the shops I’d discovered researching how to shop Arizona).

The closest parking costs $10. There are also some nearby side streets without houses or no parking signs, if you’re up for a little extra walking.

It’s an outside event. So, obviously, if you’re from Phoenix, bundle up. If you’ve travelled here from elsewhere, yes, you can laugh at the Phoenicians bundled up – as long as you come back to hike when it’s 93 degrees in May.

We didn’t know about the food vendors, so we had stopped for pho on the way over. Probably a healthier choice than we would’ve made if we had arrived hungry. (Hellooo, garlic cheese fries!)

And, in case you were wondering, yes, there’s beer. (Or, if you believe the signs, there’s beer beer beer. Beer.)

We also saw these two guys with rope leashes around massive animals, which the crowd gathering around them decided were wolves. They did not appear to be an official exhibit and aren’t mentioned on the event website. I guess if you had a pet wolf, what would you do? Take him to hang out at Glendale Glitters! (Wolves dig pretty lights. And small children.)

Glendale Glitters happens tonight (December 14) and next Friday and Saturday nights (December 20-21). I can’t guarantee there will be wolves when you go (I’m not even sure there were wolves when I went), but it’s a pretty safe bet that there will be lots of pretty lights, fried food, and small children. Oh and beer beer beer.