november you sneaky month

Um. WHERE did October go?

I barely had time to get out my scarves before November hit and with that, one of my favorite months is gone, leaving way quicker than it came. 

October was filled with lots of ups, including a friend's wedding, a weekend trip to Akron to visit Adam's granny, and even a few Wildcat wins. All of which I took approximately five pictures of. Total.

It was also the month that The {Something} Project, a blog created by a good friend of mine, officially launched. Molly was kind enough to ask me to contribute, although if you've been reading here long enough, you know I am clearly no expert on any topic whatsoever. So hop on over there to check out what's going on in the lives of eight interesting, hilarious, fun-loving gals. And me.

I'll still be posting to finer feelings of course, but what's better than one blog that I can contribute to? 

The answer is two. 

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see ya reader

Have you heard the news? Google Reader is going bye bye on July 1st. I'm super sad, as this is my preferred method of staying connected with my favorite blogs.

The most popular way to keep in touch with finer feelings post-July 1 is through bloglovin'. Check out the button on the right side bar to follow along that way.

Many bloggers use Facebook to keep their readers and friends involved. Having recently deleted the FB app on my phone (and SO happy with that decision), I don't see a finer feelings page making its way to your feed anytime soon. Facebook has proved to be an effective way to gain readership; however, it is just not a platform I believe to be a good fit. Unfortunately I find it to be more of a place for one-upping and narcissism than for sharing enlightening stories and supporting each other (there are of course exceptions to this at times).

I do appreciate all of you reading and following along, and strive to continue the growth of this little space of internet. That being said, I sure hope you continue to follow along here. I would love to hear your opinions on Facebook, and of other blog reading websites that may be a decent replacement for Google Reader.

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a day for firsts

Good Christmas Eve eve morning!
I'm currently waking up in a Marriott in Chicago after seeing Book of Mormon.

So I have some news.....
My guest post cherry has been popped.
I'm sure you wanted to know that this morning, right?
You can check it out at my friend Rachael's amazing blog, for the love of design.
She's one of my favorite bloggers, and we just so happen to be a sorority sisters from our K-State days.

Speaking of K-State, this video is a must watch for the holidays.
I'd be lying if I told you I don't tear up every time I watch it.

Now, onward ho to my first trip to Wisconsin!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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change of scenery

Kansas Citians woke up to white today.

The commute was twice as long and about four times as stressful, but I love the first snowfall of the season.

In the spirit of change, this little corner of the interwebs received a face lift this morning as well.
I'm pretty happy with the new layout so far.
It's simpler, cleaner, and I think it is more appealing to the naked eye.
I need to reformat almost all of my previous posts, so bear with me as I make tweaks to the new design.
I sure hope you like it, too. What do you guys think?
PS: if you're using Google Reader, click here to see the changes.

blog worm

You know, like book worm. I know you all need to add more blogs to your Google Reader, right?

About once a month I take a hard look at the blogs I am following and attempt to weed out any that I've stopped keeping up with for whatever reason. Currently I have 78 blogs/tumblr sites in my Reader subscription list. That even seems a little ridiculous to me. Granted some of the authors post less than once a week, but there are some that I love (like this and this) that post multiple times a day! Frankly, I'm just never caught up. I don't think I've had under 300 unread posts at one time in months.

And you know what? That's OK with me. Because these blogs I read are interesting, yummy, pretty, creative, funny, and good. I'm always excited to see what the authors have to share. So I hope through this little post, you find some new amazing blogs to read. And for even more blogs that I read on the reg, check out my dailies page up above!

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What are your favorite blogs? 

new feature: shop my picks

Today is my baby bro's 23rd birthday. Who else has a difficult time shopping for their adult brothers? I always want to get him something creative, but usually end up buying him clothes. He's potentially more of a clotheshorse than I am. I mean, the kid bought five pairs of Sperry's in one trip to Macy's a few years back. (Right when he got his first credit card and didn't understand that he would actually have to pay that money back someday.)

I digress. So here I am on his birthday looking up preppy outfits he can wear to work, and K-State gear that he's apparently lacking. You know what would be awesome? If he had an easily accessible, ongoing list of items he likes that I could look up on the internets whenever I wanted to. Oh hey guess what - I have one of those! See up above where there are links to the different pages of my blog? There's a new one on the far right called "shop my picks". This is a compilation of all the material things I am loving at the moment. Whether you want to buy them for me or for yourself is completely up to you.

Here's a little peek at some budget-friendly items I'm coveting lately.

1. ASOS chunky tres cool sweater // $61.57

2. ASOS leather bow gloves // $26.39

3. Sugarhill Boutique penguin sweater // $84.43

4. Blu Bijoux bib necklace // $36

5. Express faux fur vest // $68.60
6. Kate Spade notepad // $8

i feel smart

Hey heyyyy. This is going to be a short little bit of a post but I just wanted to let you all know I feel like I finally became a semi-legit blogger. See those cute little icons over there?

Me and my non-HTML savvy brain did that. And the links actually work! Obviously I can't take all of the credit for those baby quatrefoils/links/connections-to-my-life. Many thanks to Katie over at Lady Million for her very helpful DIY blog design posts. Seriously - I could not have done it without her. I tried.

So click on them and follow along or shoot me an email if your heart so desires. I'd love to hear from you.

what's in a name?

Hi guys. Remember me? The girl who was awesome at blogging in August until a few days ago? Yeah, about that.

what i used to do at night

It's not that I've had a lack of interesting stories to tell or pretty things to share. Quite the opposite actually. But there have been a ton of things to wrap up and tie a pretty bow on, figuratively, this week. Stuff like finishing a book, emptying my dirty laundry basket, a Fantasy Football draft (and the studying up to it!) and a trip to the Ozarks with my high school friends.

going on 12 years of friendship with this crew  ♥

So I thought I'd take a few minutes to blog about something I've never addressed on little miss finer feelings before (because my blog is a girl, ya know). The name. How I got it, where it came from, and other options I considered.

I wanted to start a blog about six months before I actually did. The main reason for the wait was that I worked ridiculously long hours at a company that sucks the life out of its employees. Yikes. The other reason was because I couldn't decide on a name.

My favorite option when I was brainstorming a blog name was "Bordeaux in the Bedroom". Because I drink a lot of wine. In bed. I've knocked the glass off and spilled wine on my carpet a time or two at every place I've lived at since Senior year of college. I've broken a glass the next morning as I launched it from my bedside table trying to turn off my alarm. My side of Blue Eyes' white comforter is speckled covered with red wine spots from a similar alarm-induced spill. Call me a lush, but there are few things I enjoy more than sipping on some wine while reading my Kindle or browsing on my laptop.

Bordeaux in the Bedroom got the ax when I brought it up to Blue Eyes and he said, "Sounds like bored in the bedroom." That was that, no more BITB.

The other options all had something to do with feathers, gold, glitter or lace. But there were already a bunch of well-established blogs with hundreds of followers with similar names. Obviously I started following them all and have fallen in love with the content, but I knew I'd need to get a little more creative to find a title that would stand out.

So I'm listening to one of my favorite bands on my iPod one day and up pops the song Finer Feelings. By this point, I knew I wanted my blog to be something that makes people feel good when they're done reading it. And I figured "fine" was a perfectly suitable synonym for good. It also didn't put limitations on my content, since you might feel fine after reading something about fashion, hearing new music, looking at pretty pictures or when I'm poking fun at myself.

There you have it. That's how finer feelings was born. Now go out there and enjoy your Labor Day weekend. I will be in Manhappy tomorrow, cheering on the Wildcats!