Amy

For my birthday

by Amy on April 2, 2013

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!

muppet face

I love birthdays! Love love love love …. Andrew and I celebrate “birthday month”

For my birthday I have ONE request:

I want to know how I (or my ebooks or my blog, etc) have helped you in the last year.

I’d love if you could just leave a comment below …

…. or link to review on your site

…. or link to a testimonial on Facebook

…. or link to a video testimonial on YouTube or Vimeo

…. or email me

Just a little somethin-somethin to let me know I’ve been on the right track in the content I’m creating. Anything you have to say, I’d love to hear it.

THANK YOU!

11 comments

5 fast facts

by Amy on March 13, 2013

Inspired by Kam’s brilliant 5 fast facts post a couple weeks ago

I ~~was~~ am the show-tune-belting nightmare you knew in high school. Oh yeah, some people don’t like me because I’m that girl. I’m OK with it. The only music I really buy is musical soundtracks (and Adele, last spring). I have a To Sing playlist on my iPod with all the best showtunes for my voice and whenever I’m feeling down a little singing can totally turn it around. True story. I don’t really care if that makes me unlikable for some people.
I only drink coffee and water. Which means whenever we have guests over we need to either warn them in advance (and ask them do bring their drink of choice) or buy something special (that ends up sitting in our fridge for weeks afterward). We have a bar full of whiskey/scotch and liquor for special drinks, but on a regular basis it’s just coffee and water.
I hate to drive right now. But I really think it’s probably just because I’m driving so far to a dumb ol’ day job I do not enjoy. But when I was 18-19 years old or so I did community theater and was driving HOURS every night. It was totally fine and I didn’t even give it a second thought …. I loved where I was driving to. Sometimes I carpooled with a friend and we sang the whole hour-ish drive. Because I was that show-tune-belting nightmare you knew in high school.
I’m putting myself through a self-paced U.S. History class. I’ve been working on it for 4.5 years and am only as far as Andrew Jackson. But I am loving it so so much. I have cried when John Quincy Adams died in all 3 biographies of him I’ve read. I can go on a rant about the historical importance of people like Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall – people that most Americans never think of. I have the order of presidents memorized 1788 – 1840 and again 1930 – present. Working on the middle. Someday this will all help me win money on a trivia game show, I’m sure.
I hate spending money. Even on things I need. At this point in my life, I want to save every single penny to buy back my time (early retirement and time off to travel). So much so that I only have jeans that have holes or don’t fit. So much so that Andrew does our laundry at his parents’ house because we haven’t yet bought a washer and dryer (even though we’ve lived in this house for a year with a washer/dryer hookup). Other than food and gas (to get to aforementioned day job) I can talk myself out of buying most things.

What’s one random fact about you?

3 comments

Happy 4th!

by Amy on July 4, 2012

Today will be laundry, no make-up, fresh fruit and writing.

I have a lot to catch up on – between this blog, Project Life, 30 Days of Lists and so many more projects that I love love love. Oh yes! And kitten snuggling!

Off to enjoy my day-off-from-the-day-job …

2 comments

a visit from Kam and Justine

by Amy on June 26, 2012

I love living in Southern California – if only for the awesome blog friends in the area I can get together with in real life!

Ever since we bought our house a few months ago, Kam and Justine have been talking about making the LONG trip up to visit! And, yes, it’s long. I think Justine drove 35 minutes to Kam’s and then the 2 of them drove another hour and a half up to my house.

On a Sunday morning.

But, obviously, it was worth it. Between my delicious lunch and the kittens and my chalkboard wall?

I made one of my 3 go-to recipes : turkey black bean chili

I make this chili recipe for guests ALL the time because A) it’s delicious; B ) it’s easy and (relatively) quick and C) it’s gluten free, dairy free and sugar free so works for a lot of food allergies/aversions

Also, Andrew and I love having the leftovers ….

So chili, fresh fruit and ice cream …. YUM!

All 3 of us instagram’d a bunch of photos! We had our phones out all afternoon.

Mostly of my kittens … who are about 10 weeks old in these photos (if I’m doing the math right) … and so much fun!

(and yes, that tin foil is to deter gnawing on the corners)

We also did the first photo shoot in front of my chalkboard wall!

You may remember, my office looks a bit like this. I’ve unpacked more of the boxes, so there’s a bigger expanse of wall bare, but it’s still in-progress…

Andrew – bless his heart – came and took a slew of photos of us, and then the 3 of us handed off the cameras to take some more.

I need a more up-to-date go-to profile photo ….

And yes, I really am that white. It’s not just a contrast to the black wall.

The kittens had followed up upstairs into the office – and I’m sure they regret it after this photo

There are a bunch (a TON) more, that will have to wait ….

SO much fun spending the afternoon with Kam and Justine! I love those girls …. I don’t have a ton of girlfriends, and even fewer who understand living life on the blog, so it’s so nice and easy to pass hours and hours talking with these 2.

Next time, I’ll make the drive down to one of their houses …. I really do live pretty far north for “SoCal”

3 comments

Memorial Day Weekend

by Amy on May 31, 2012

I don’t usually post a lot of family-focused posts here …. so consider this a peek into what goes up at Those Crazy Schuberts all the time!

I’d love it if you joined me over there on a regular basis – where I write about our new house, travel, family and friends, and quirky Amy & Andrew stories…..

But here’s our recent oh-so-full weekend….

My parents came into town from Phoenix late Friday night and I put them right to work!

No, wait. … that’s not true.

Saturday morning, Andrew went to work and the other 3 of us kind of just lazed around the house. I gave my parents the full house tour since this was their first time seeing it, coffee, showers, a little interneting, a friend came by to borrow one of my lenses and we chatted a bit ….

And then I guess my dad got antsy because he kept asking me what he could do…. I showed him our FULL to do list hoping to put him off, but instead he just picked a small task and set to work….

There is a LOT of work to do around our house – it was vacant for a year – so my dad occupied himself with weeding the front yard patches that need it and digging these whatever-they-are stalks out of the back.

I went outside to take photos of my dad, and when I come back in my mom is cleaning the downstairs bathroom!

Again, I did NOT ask for any of this …. Crazy kids….

Then she got started on the downstairs windows. I *think* she was only planning on doing one …. but once you see 1 window clean all the rest look dirty ….

And what was I doing in all of this ? ….

Taking photos, for sure. But also prepping food….. We were planning on having at least 7, possibly 11 people for dinner Sunday so I took the afternoon to prep as much food as I could in advance.

All of us really just waiting for Andrew to get home, since he’s the most entertaining.

We did take out for dinner, and I got my parents started on Downton Abbey!!

My parents are SO EASY … They are excellent guests, and I never have to feel like I’m letting them down as a hostess …. Want me to send them to your house?

Sunday Andrew had off work …. he doesn’t do well with days off (needs to fill them with other activities), so he woke up Sunday morning and built a window screen.

True story …

Luckily, we had plans for some family to stop by so he had more of a low-key afternoon …

Just after noon, Andrew’s sister / her husband came by with their new baby!

Our first nephew! He is 9 days old in these photos ….

We just love him. Obviously.

I love that he just looked straight into the camera lens … No fear. No embarrassment. I hope he never learns those things …

(here we are giving him what I call the ‘Muppet face’ …. big eyes, exaggerated smile)

Not long after Andrew’s sister and family left …. I started in on cooking for all the guests coming over – the rest of Andrew’s family….

I have this recipe that I just LOVE …. turkey black bean chili. It’s delicious and SO easy …. Once you’ve chopped up all the fresh garlic. …..

Guest for dinner and dessert, more Downton Abbey before we went to bed …..

And then planning for more guests for Monday morning.

…. Monday morning bright and early Andrew changed the oil in my car – because that boy CAN.NOT.RELAX

His work ethic is legendary …. also, he’s crazy.

But I benefit from it, so who am I to complain….

Most of my extended family lives in Arizona – but I have one uncle and his family that live just a few blocks from us. So they came over for breakfast Monday morning…

My parents – bless their hearts – bought most of the food AND did the little bit of cooking necessary ….

Our family just hung out and visited all morning …. until about 2p or so when the locals went home and my parents left for their drive back.

So from about 2p until about 530p on Monday Andrew and I happened to have the house to our selves without needing to entertain.

I wanted to take a nap – Andrew wanted to work more.

I’m telling you. CRAZY.

But Monday night was what he was REALLY looking forward to ….

As you may know, Andrew has a small record label. He got the test pressing for the next release last week, and just needed it approved by the band.

Or, in this case, the band’s former frontman because the band has now broken up and the frontman is the only one who cares about this release ….

So we had a little listening party Monday night …. invited some friends over. Grilled burgers. Played some video games.

Our friends and family are so low-maintenance that entertaining is generally VERY easy ….

But I still went to bed after 1a and woke up around 530a on Tuesday morning ….. So as easy as it was, Tuesday was spent exhausted.

But TOTALLY worth it …. as you can see we had a VERY full weekend, packed full with friends and family all in our new house.

I literally only left the house for *maybe* an hour the whole weekend. And THAT was only to go grocery shopping.

I love our house, I love the people in our life …. I loved this last weekend….

I can’t wait to quit my job so I can be around weeknight evenings for guests too!

How was YOUR memorial day??

2 comments

a little of this a little of that

by Amy on May 8, 2012

I’ve started working as the Marketing Director for Ghostbot Records
granted, it’s an unpaid freelance position since it’s my husband’s company, but still
I plan on taking you all behind the scenes of marketing this little tiny company, too! It’ll be fun
Want to sponsor or contribute a guest post?
getting better vs being good
I’m working on putting myself on a new morning schedule: wake up, 1 hour of blog reading/email/coffee, 30-45 min of job hunting, then WORK WORK WORK (sometimes on the computer, sometimes off depending on what needs to be done)
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thinking about if I want to make a Summer 2012 mini album, or just stick with using Project Life.
I loved our Autumn 2011 album, and I think this summer is going to be so busy with our new house…. but do I really need ANOTHER project to keep up?
Thinking about In the Sun, though if I do do a summer project
I love summer ….
I’m so excited about how our house is coming together. For the longest time it felt like we would always be living out of boxes
We’re at the point now that all the BIG things have been done so the house is livable, so now we just need to bide our time til we have the money to do the less-important things (like a rug for the living room or blinds for the dining room)
Here’s our TO DO list so you can get an idea of what I’ll be working on
And then the front/backyard landscaping are whole bunches of projects too …
For the first time in 4 years I am taking Memorial Day off (I had previously volunteered to be one of 3 people who work that day).
Kind of thrilled, actually
Andrew has been SO supportive of Project Life – always taking photos of his recording sessions and things for me. Bless his heart.
How’s your week going?

0 comments

My workspace currently

by Amy on May 7, 2012

By request, here are some photos of my office so far….

We moved into our new house March 10 … and then spent about 3 weeks moving all of our boxes out of storage into the house.

We moved in with 1 tall bookcase (now in our sitting room off the kitchen) and 2 big EXPEDIT bookcases (now in the guest room full of records).

Which means that ALL of these books and all my scrapbooks and scrapbooking supplies have no home.

On my birthday, we went and bought some more bookcases for my office. They fill up one whole wall, but they put just a dent in the boxes we’ve got….

Take a look ….

(For reference, the BEFORE tour of our house is here)

This first image I’m standing in the doorway shooting toward my desk and window (there is a small hallway and closet to the right, and the rest of the room with the bookcases to the left)….

a little the the left …. you can see the chalkboard wall in this shot…

further around … the chalkboard wall and bookcases …

shooting back towards the bookcases (the door is just to the left of this photo)…..

{random: I just found these 3 big bottles of Mod Podge in a box. No idea why I have them!}

and then back towards the little hallway (to the bathroom) and closet. You see the door on the right, desk on the left.

Those big pieces of wood-looking things toward the back are pieces of another EXPEDIT shelving unit that we had in storage. But I still have to find the big screws that hold it together. Most likely in one of these boxes that I can’t really unpack. Convenient.

Lovely, right?

Clearly we need more shelves. I can’t imagine that I’ll have much space to hang up wall art (even though I had all these grand plans to get a big world map and other travel-related art).

I’ve just accessed a couple boxes of scrapbooking supplies for my Project Life book, but I have a TON more … mostly paper. (Don’t forget, I worked for Michael’s for 3 years and spent all my paychecks there).

I seriously can’t wait til this room is put together … I miss my books, I really want to go through the scrapbooking supplies and purge, and I really REALLY want to use the chalkboard wall for some fun photos!

Still planning on getting blinds for the window, maybe one day a ceiling fan, and (obviously) shelving…. Somewhere under that pile of boxes is a sewing machine, too!

How does your creative space look? Like mine, or is yours all put together?

9 comments

Today I enter my 30s

by Amy on April 2, 2012

This last year has been fantastic …. this next year will be even better.

I’m 30 today …. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about that.

I mean, I don’t mind getting older. I never have, really. But I suppose part of that is because I skipped a grade so I’ve always been the youngest of my friends anyway.

But now …. it’s not that I feel old – but more like “entering my 30s” signals a totally different shift. Being “in my 30s” feels like it should be something totally different than being “in my 20s” ….. But I never had a typical 20s anyway (never partied, happily married at 23 and spent the following 6+ years saving to buy a house).

So, only time will tell what my 30s bring. Hoping this house gets more put together, for one Hoping I can finish writing one of the many books I have floating in my imagination. Hoping I find just as much joy in my every day life as I do now ….

I was reading Elise’s 26 things post in advance of HER birthday a couple months ago and was gratefully reminded of all the amazing things I have come across, experienced and loved over the last year:

In no particular order:

Our HOUSE - I know it seems like the house is trying to kill me, but once all the big things are fixed and some of the nice little things are bought, the house is going to be AMAZING. I really am so excited to finally have bought a house!! Even all the work we’re doing is fun …. making a real “home” together. Instead of the last 4+ years living in cheap, tiny places without unpacking everything or putting art on the walls, always knowing it was temporary since we were saving for a house.

Pinterest – I waited a long time, but as soon as it was apparent we were getting this house I realized how much Pinterest could help me corral my decor ideas. It has been so helpful!!

Goodreads – Andrew got me into this. I thought I didn’t need *another* social media site – least of all one that I could never stay caught up with. I have more than 20 years of book-reading that will never make it to my Goodreads profile. But then I thought about how much I read and how quickly. So much that I literally can’t remember if I’ve read a book or not til I’m part way through. So I have been loving Goodreads recently to help me keep track of what I’m reading NOW (since the beginning of 2012 at least).

SMASH - I was one of those super cool kids who got their mother to go rent Funny Girl and Guys and Dolls from the video store when I was in Junior High or so. I don’t remember when it started or why, but I have always loved musicals! And now, finally, the rest of America has show enough of an interest in musicals to justify this new TV show about Broadway. Not only a show about Broadway, but a show about a musical with a female lead! I literally could not be more pleased!! I cannot wait to buy the DVD for season 1 when it’s available – to support with my wallet the pop culture that I love.

John Quincy Adams – I am in the middle of a self-guided American History “class” (which basically means I am reading all the American History books I can in roughly chronological order). I honestly have LOVED it – and I fully accept the nerdiness of that. But hands down, my favorite President so far has been John Quincy Adams. Go read the post I wrote about it. Learning about people like this completely inspires me in my own life – no matter how far apart we are in time and circumstances.

Paleo diet - I first heard about this “diet” on dooce.com …. In her typical style, she poked fun at it even as she wrote about how much she loved it. But still, the way she described ‘paleo’ made it sound like it would be something difficult to take seriously. But the more I learned about it, the more I experimented with my own food choices and the more I learned about nutrition in general, the more enthusiastic I am about Paleo recipes! I’m not fully on the Paleo diet (huge fan of dairy), but it’s super helpful to find grain-free recipes just by following some Paleo food blogs! Give it a try!

Dishing Up Nutrition - I started listening to this podcast back in September or so and have completely improved my diet since then. I cannot recommend this podcast highly enough. ESPECIALLY if you have any kind of health problem – from anxiety to eczema. I have learned SO much and feel healthier now than I have in years and years.

I quit Sugar ebook – As much as I DO miss baked goods at every opportunity, I also feel much healthier having significantly cut back on my sugar. I haven’t quit completely, but this ebook from Sarah Wilson is a god-send for anyone trying to cut sugar out of their diet. (I realize these last 3 items on the list make me sound like a crazy health nut. I *promise* I’m not)

Dutch oven + cookbook – I have LOVED my cast iron dutch oven and the dutch oven cookbook I got for my birthday last year. There is nothing easier, tastier and healthier than making a big pot of homemade soup or chili and having leftovers for days…. I need to post some of my (altered) recipes soon!

Scotland – Andrew and I were lucky enough to be able to go to Scotland for a week last summer with very little expense to us. Traveling with Andrew is one of my favorite favorite things – I love sharing those experiences with him! And traveling to Europe, with ghosts around every corner is even better

Alaska – We also spent a week on an Alaskan cruise which was a fantastic vacation for a very different reason. Being on a cruise ship where there’s nothing to do but eat and read and sleep forces downtime that neither of us has had in …. ever? We had so much fun ….

Blurb – After keeping the bulk of my scrapbooking supplies in storage for 4 years, I am realizing more and more how much I feel like I’m “done” with traditional scrapbooking. Too much stuff. I am IN LOVE with the idea of putting together BLURB books more regularly. Same about of time and money investment – far fewer THINGS taking up room. In the last year I’ve made a Blurb book for our Alaska vacation and for December Daily. In this next year, I want to finish my Blurb book for our Scotland vacation as well as several other things! Such great quality books for preserving memories.

30 Days of Lists - God bless Kam for including me in her project a year ago. I never (ever) thought that we would get the response and the enthusiasm that we did. I am looking forward to future sessions and the opportunities to capture small snapshots of my life in lists.

This list is by no means complete, but it is a good cross-section of what 29 looked like for me …..

What are you loving right now?

4 comments

Elsewhere

by Amy on February 28, 2012

I feel like I have been all over the place for the last few months. …. A combination of buying a house and launching March’s 30 Days of Lists ….

Here is just a brief look at what I’ve been doing when I’m not here at L&R…

30 Days of Lists! This project has been consuming a ton of time recently! …. In addition to the brief posts and pages on the main 30Lists site, Kam and I have been blogging quite frequently on the private blog for registered users, creating future posts behind the scenes, and keeping up with the forum …

The #30Lists journaling challenge starts Thursday …. We’d love if you could join us!

Some other love ….

French Cannes Cannes included Lemon and Raspberry in her short list of 6 blogs she loves: Oh La La J’adore – Blogs I Love!

(note: If you are at all interested in reading about an American living in Paris, DEFINITELY check out French Cannes Cannes! She has such a great sense of humor

Holly of So Dang Brilliant reviewed my Better Blog Content Workbook! I especially appreciate that she compared it to Elsie Larson’s Blog Love ecourse (I deliberately purchased Elsie’s course to make sure that the 2 products didn’t overlap too much).

Read Holly’s review or get your own copy of Better Blog Content here….

And my favorite feature from the last month …..

A couple weeks ago I woke up to this tweet from Stephanie Dickison :

Thanks @stephauteri @amytschubert @allysonlatta for inspiring me with ur #writing + passion. Read all about it in March issue @TheWriterMag.

Um. What?????

So, that’s how I found out that Lemon and Raspberry has been featured in the March 2012 issue of The Writer Magazine.

The magazine may still be on newstands. There are several other sites featured that are well worth checking out…. … Or my mom just scanned the page for me (you can read my little blurb to the right ->> )

I’m so honored that this little site has been noticed for my writing! Thanks Stephanie!

also…. some highlights from Those Crazy Schuberts

Schubert house-hunting updates: