These are a few of my favorite things...

Enough of the big smiley picture of me being the first thing you see on this blog!

Here's a few things that are making me happy at the moment:


I love these shoes so much! I can't find the style, but they are from Steve Madden and I wore them Saturday night when we went out. The heel is about 4" and I was hobbling by the end of the night, but damn they're hot!


RunKeeper - a free application for the iPhone that provides GPS-driven fitness tracking. My neighbor hooked me on this one. You can use it while running, walking, hiking, cycling, skiing, and more. It uses GPS to track where you've gone, the distance, your speed and pace, elevation, and there are more features if you purchase the Pro version. I downloaded it last week and was motivated to walk Ayla every day, and to walk as fast as I could at that! We logged almost 11 miles last week. I don't particularly enjoy running, but I can walk for ages. Then I'd come home and check out the map overview of our route, how long we walked, how fast we walked, etc. Its a great incentive! And FREE!

Image from Amazon.com

I finally picked up Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, the followup to the first Professor Layton game. Its a really fun puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, with an illustrated storyline, funny characters, and 150+ brainteasers to work through in order to solve the mystery of the diabolical box. I absolutely loved the first game and have been looking forward to playing the sequel, which released in August.


E-books on my iPhone - I'm more likely to read when its so easy. My work bag usually has a paper book in it anyway (Something Missing by Matthew Dicks right now, which I'm really enjoying), but if I'm waiting in line somewhere, or don't want to carry a book or what have you, I love having something easy to access and carry. I've used Kindle for iPhone, LexCycle's Stanza, and Iceberg. I think Iceberg has been the most difficult to use because the page turn feature is the touchiest, while Kindle has been the easiest to purchase for since its right out of the Amazon store, and I often have gift certificates there.

Not my house, but I love this caged bird graphic!

Wall decals from Leen the Graphics Queen. Her designs have simple, modern lines and bold colors, and she is one talented lady. I would love to put this bird graphic next the the giant cat post in my living room, as a little friend for Gretel to hang out with. Leen has many more awesome decals as well. And the best thing? You can win one! Go visit Its the Little Things... to enter the contest and perhaps this little birdie, or another decal of your choosing, will decorate your walls.


There's a diabolical box calling my name. Gotta go!