Get ready to cringe! It’s time for our annual (and always amazingly awkward) Q&A video. Just like in past blogiversary weeks, we invited you guys to ask us some personal (i.e. non-decorating) questions over on our Facebook page last week. And after over 150 questions came rolling in, we sat down and answered as many as we could while Clara napped one afternoon – and then culled it down into this 20 minute video. Among all of our mind-blowing, no-holds-barred revelations (note the sensationalism) you’ll learn:
- If we’d ever let readers vote on the decorating choices we make
- What blog post we regret writing
- Our thoughts on snarky message boards
- If we ever think about reversing our no-swag policy
- If we won the lottery, what we’d change about our lives
- What our neighbors think of the blog
- If we regret choosing our blog name
- What ceramic animal I’d save if our house was under a zombie attack
- How we keep the blog from consuming our lives
- If our marriage is perfect (spoiler alert: nope!)
- Why I’ll probably never cut my hair super short again
- If I still own just one bra
- THE MUCH ANTICIPATED POSSUM-IN-THE-BASEMENT STORY!!!
So now that you’re most likely on the edge of your seat (… or not) here goes nothing:
Clara (and Burger apparently) were napping, hence their non-appearances, but last year we did a little bonus Q&A video with them. So we thought it’d be a fun traditional to put them in the hot seat again. And by hot seat, we mean hurdling hard-hitting questions like “what’s your favorite letter?” Let the cross examination begin:
So there you have it, another year of us blathering on about personal stuff and mythical horse sized ducks and mysterious mammals in our crawl space. Did anything surprise you? Or spark another question in your brain? We can’t promise we can answer every one of them in the comments here, but feel free to ask away as potential future fodder for next year…
Psst- Want more awkward? Here are the Q&A posts for 2012, 2011, 2010 & 2009: Part 1 + Part 2.
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Oh but before we go, let’s talk about you guys for a second. Each year we love finding out who the heck you guys are, and then on Friday John can make a nerd-tastic infographic all about it (last year’s had Beyonce in it, so it might be hard to top that).
Come on 4 o’clock so I can go home and watch since work won’t let me!!!!
I’m waiting til lunch break!! T-minus 3 1/2 hours and counting.
Who else is sneaking off to the bathroom at work with their iphone so they can watch the video now? I know I’m not the only one!!
I have to wait for my phone to charge enough to go watch it (at 5%)…oh the suspense!
Haha!
xo
s
You guys are so cute- love the video!
Oh man! I just realized I’ve been reading for at least a year, probably more like a year and a half! Crazy.
Seriously considering going home sick from work just so that I can watch these ASAPington!
Haha, ASAPington is the best thing I’ve heard all day!
xo
s
Haha we used to use the doorbell trick to get our dog to bark! We recorded it for our family answer phone. Going back to watch the main Q&A now!
Is it weird that I wanted to respond to “You can find me…” with “in St. Louis rollin’ on dubs?” Nelly, anyone? (and PS – that would be inaccurate. i’m from Michigan)
Also, Blogiversary is seriously my favorite week on your blog. :)
Best response ever! Should have had a write in line!
xo
s
Ha!! I thought the exact same thing!! Although I am also not from St. Louis, but MN. :)
I’m from the Lou and I’m proud (another Nelly reference) so I would have loved to see that as an option!!
Oh my gosh, Burger made me laugh out loud! Good thing my door’s closed at work … :) You two are the best. Here’s to another 6 — or 66! — years!
Yay Sherry…..you nailed the eyeliner girl!
Notttt up close. Haha! I have the shakiest hands in the world. I don’t know why I can cut in but can’t use eyeliner… maybe because the dang thing is so small and I’m so blinky?
xo
s
better to be blinky than barky ;)
Haha!
xo
s
Well, I didn’t have a song stuck in my head until the last question, anyway. Thanks, guys.
You guys should really consider including a transcript for those of us at work :)
We wish! Typing out twenty minutes of chatter would be like 30,000 words, but I wish the google subtitles worked better!
xo
s
I agree! Posting the questions as text instead of reading them out loud makes this video almost impossible for those of us at work to enjoy. Please consider reading the questions out loud in future years!
Maybe you should consider letting one of your readers transcribe your Q&A. The perk (for an avid reader/ace typist) would be seeing the video a little early and you’d get the transcript for free! Just a thought.
Cute video. You four (FIVE? you didn’t answer the pregnant questions) are adorable!
That would be awesome! Anyone want to take on the challenge? I just hate someone spending hours on it!
xo
s
I’d totally do it! …if I could put it on my resume ;)
Oh, me! I’m currently living in the Caribbean and I’m not allowed to have a job (I know, my life is hard)so if you need a transcriber, I’m your girl. :)
I’ll see what I can do. It only took me a few minutes to toy with transcribing your first question. Should I email it to you? What’s the email if so? (If I don’t finish it by 5pm EST I will likely not be able to complete it, so no promises.)
Also, I was more so thinking for the future videos. Like, you can set up a “contest” and let the “winner” have 48 hours to transcribe it before you post it. You can pick randomly or something… I don’t know. This is way beyond my knowledge of the inner workings of blog life. It may not be worth it for you to take the time to review the transcript if the “winner” wasn’t the most advanced typist.
I’ll take a stab at it and see if I can get it to you by 5pm (EST). No promises, although I transcribed your first question in only a few minutes.
I was more so thinking for future videos. Maybe you can put up a “contest” and pick a “winner” who has 48 hours to transcribe the video so you can post it at the same time. (There are probably lots of blogging downsides to that but I don’t blog, so I don’t know if that would be worth it.)
Aw thanks, guys! I think the idea to transcribe for future videos is a good one. I just watched five minutes of this one and I think we just do so many visual things (for example, demonstrating where on the social scale we fall with our hands instead of in words) that I honestly don’t think a transcript would capture half as much as just waiting and watching the video later. But you guys are so sweet to offer!
xo
s
We use a service called Casting Words for creating a transcription of videos. It’s pretty cheap (less than $100 for an hour long video if you choose the 6 day option for turnaround time). Something to think about in the future.
Thanks Emily!
xo
s
Please, please, let one of your readers or hire someone to do a transcript and then you can feed it to many of the captionining websites and they’ll turn it into captions. Because there are many of your readers, including me, who are deaf and can’t even “wait until after work” to watch it because .. well, we’re deaf! I recommend this blog to so many of my readers and friends who are deaf and it’s sad to see that your videos are still not captioned. Please!!! Thanks :)
Not just for those of us at work – those of us with hearing impairments would really, really benefit from a transcript, too (a point I’ve raised here before). I skip all the videos because of this. I know it can be a lot of work, but maybe a summary would be easier?
I’m so sorry Elisa and Melanie! I LOVE the idea of having the captions come up right on the video (I think that would help capture things that we do visually like when we gesture about something as we talk) more than a straight transcript without a visual. Will have to look into that for sure! When it’s a project video, we do our best to include additional photos and a text summary when we can (like we did here and here) but we’d love to do that more often too!
xo
s
Ugh, please don’t ever turn the grunt work of transcription into a “contest” for your readers. That’s hard work and it deserves a fair wage; “letting” someone do it for free isn’t cool. I imagine you could find someone to do it on a site like eLance.com for a very reasonable price.
Thanks MissPink! Someone above provided a link to a paid service that we look forward to looking into for possible future videos! You can hopefully see from my responses above to people volunteering that I hated the idea of someone spending time on that, even if they asked to help :)
xo
s
No need to transcribe! It is so much better to watch them answer the questions as they are very animated and interactive. People-If you can’t watch it at work, then it will still be up when you get home!
Thanks for anwering my question in the video. I feel special!
If you have a transcription, you can pretty easily caption the YouTube video. We have to do this at work for federal web accessibility. Here is a link to instructions. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796?hl=en
Thanks Emily!
xo
s
Good news – did some crowd-sourcing on Facebook and got these two websites that can subtitle your videos for you.
1. http://about.amara.org/order-subtitles/
2. http://yourdailymentor.com/ (not launched yet, but will launch VERY SOON)
Please do consider using these services for your many deaf readers! Thanks!!
Elisa
Thanks so much Elisa! John and I have already been chatting about definitely subtitling within the video (with an opt in option) for you guys!
xo
s
Great! I am soooooo looking forward to finally enjoying your videos. Thanks! :-)
Of course! So sorry it took us so long to figure this stuff out!
xo
s
Clara is so adorable! And we totally have a ‘barky’ dog at our house too. Doorbell gets him every time :)
Of course everyone is going to have ‘ring on it’ in their heads for that question!
I just watched the short Clara & Burger video–can’t wait to watch the first one over lunch! Left over fajitas and a Q&A by John and Sherry–I can’t think of a better way to spend lunch at my desk! :)
The Clara/Burger video is priceless–Clara is so smart and Burger is a gem!
Thanks for a morning pick me up.
I can’t watch the video yet (hubby’s trying to sleep, boo!) but I filled in the survey. I beamed like an idiot when I got to check the “a kid or kids” box! Made it in with almost a month to spare ;-) Thanks for giving me something to read during long (loooooong) feeding sessions, guys!
Congrats again Chrissie! So sweet.
xo
s
Hi There!
I love your blog and wanted to say thank you for keeping me entertained every day. :) Also… you mentioned in your video that you do a lot of image resizing, have you ever checked out Blog Stomp? I use it and it makes life so much easier! Just thought I would mention it, it might save you some time. :)
-Kristen
Thanks Kristen! We’ll have to check it out! We already used “actions” in Photoshop, which seems to help, but a lot of times it’s just going through 300 photos we might have taken over five days of a project and choosing the 12 that best demonstrate each step. We take way too make pictures.
xo
s
I know ya’ll use actions, but do you use the batching actions function? If you’ve narrowed down to the 12 or so pics that you want, there is a way to automate the action so you don’t have to actually press those buttons 12 times for each photo. And you can autosave as well! just do a quick google for ‘automate actions’ or ‘batch actions’ if you haven’t already! I’m sure ya’ll have that figured out since John is such a wiz!
Thanks Katy! Will check it out!
xo
s
Had to pause the video just to say, Sherry, get your paint on! Just do it, no need to share. Do it for you. Then, one day, as a house project, you can take the unfinished space upstairs and make it a studio. Dormers, skylights, sheetrock. You could have it all. But seriously, paint!
Aw thanks Theresa! That sounds awesome.
xo
s
I should not have watched the Clara & Burger video with two cats on my lap. Ow, I have two big and fluffy scaredy cats hiding under the blanket now.
Johanna,
Thanks for the warning!! Will remove all cats before watching. One is here purring now….
T.
Haha! Our apologies to cats everywhere.
xo
s
This is so sad(to rush it), but I can’t wait until “we” do “our” girl’s graduation party, wedding, etc. I could cry –she’s that sweet!! Thank You, really, thank you.
I would just like to say parenting win for Clara saying Macklemore as her favorite singer.
Also, I literally laughed out loud at the “van down by the river”.
Can’t wait to watch these! I do wish that there was a transcript or captions though. I have many friends and family in the deaf community and there’s like no hope for the auto captioning available on youtube. It can be quite comic at times what it comes up with. Oh, and then I could watch them at work too, but that’s just an after thought! ;) I’m sure you have some superfans who wouldn’t mind transcribing it for you (or at least a piece at a time).
You guys are seriously adorable. Loved the videos.
You guys rock! Thanks for sharing. I could LIVE off of pizza and loaded nachos, myself. :)
Love the idea of letting people vote on a few things for your show home! My husband works for a local homebuilder in Virginia and built a whole house that way with facebook… http://hamptonroads.com/2013/08/virtually-anyone-can-help-build-house!
Congrats on 6 years of blogging!
-Emily
That’s so much fun!
xo
s
Hampton Roads in the house!!
I wanted to ask but didn’t get the chance “what would you guys be doing now if this blog had never happened?” Maybe you could do a follow up video to all the questions that follow!?!? Off to watch the video~
Thanks Steph! My best guess would be that we’d both still be in advertising (I wrote copy for print ads & scripts for TV commercials while John was an account manager so he coordinated things like shoots and budgets). We both really loved that profession (especially working from Richmond where it was less intense than NYC) so I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up in advertising again someday!
xo,
s
It is probably somewhere on google but could you explain what “I wrote copy” means?
I was a copywriter, so I concepted an ad idea with an art director and then they’d do the design of it and I’d write the headline and body copy and taglines and then we’d shoot the ad (or commercial) and edit it or lay it out together and then it would go to print or be on TV. Although the reality was that the client would usually change ten million things and then it would go to print or be on TV. Haha!
xo
s
So basically your jobs were like a modern version of Mad Men? Don’t burst my bubble if the answer is no.
Less cigarette smoking and more crying when ideas got killed. But pretty close.
xo
s
Thanks! And hopefully less affairs! LOL
Oh yes, there were some secret office romances (ours was one of them) but zero affairs… at least that we knew of.
xo
s
These are my favorite posts! So glad I could close my office door and watch right away!
You guys are awesome! Keep on keeping on!!
loved both videos!
Thanks for the laugh, I love the poll!
Love the videos & the survey! Fun!
John, at first I thought you were going gray early. Then I realized it was paint! I think you need to keep that going on. It looks great on you! Ha!!!
Oh yeah, I’m totally going gray on the same side of my head as my sister. Genes, baby! But once a teenager asked if I dyed it that way because it was “wicked cool” so I like to pretend that my gray streak is my superpower.
-John
I too am a fan of the gray streak.
Love this:) I especially love how your toughest question to answer was which ceramic animal you would take if flying monkeys attacked:) Clara is adorable and Burger was a hilarious finale. Keep doing what you’re doing, we love it!
Loved this! I love you guys for being so genuine.
Just wondering… does John have frosted tips? It kind of looks like it in the video…
He’s going gray on that one side. I love my Silver Fox!
xo
s
I love these videos! The two of you are hilarious and not at all awkward. Or maybe I just think that because I always use the word awkward to describe myself, haha.
Posts like this are why at least once a week I find myself telling someone “On my favorite blog Young House Love blah blah blah”……. I swear, decorating or how-to conversations seem to always come back to you guys somehow and how great your blog is. My mom even ‘stole’ my copy of your book because I had mentioned you so many times. I probably should just get her her own copy – or get myself a new one….
I absolutely loved your survey – I was cracking up with the response options. I would have loved to see your reader demographics broken down by state too – although I know that would be a ton of work for John…..perhaps in the future you could just do a poll and post a list of the breakdown by state – no fancy chart – just a simple list from most to least popular.
That would be fun!
xo
s
Love it! You Two are tu tu cute! I actually lol’d at Burger, I almost choked on my coffee! Do you ever get stalkerish fans or paparazzi type people trying to figure out your secret? (Or (gulp) where you live?) Sorry if this has been asked and answered already…..
I,so very much so, identify with John getting things done then happy free time, I can’t do anything until I have the daily stuff in order, then I feel I have earned the fun time (to include waking earlier if I have to leave earlier….it’s a bit neurotic) :)
Aw thanks Rebecca! We have generally been really lucky with our privacy (we’ll meet people when we’re out, but no one has ever followed us home or shown up on our door or anything). We’re not that interesting, haha! Thankfully we do have a nice alarm system just in case (once we had Clara I got all momma-bear-paranoid about it) so that’s some nice peace of mind.
xo
s
I’ve seen john a few times at the gym, bright and early, and as much as I want to say hi, I just cant bring myself to bother him. I figure that’s his time to get away from it all and I totally respect that.
Aw, he’d love to meet you!
xo
s
Oh my word, I laughed so hard during Burger’s interview. He just took off, a streak of chihuahua…and then came back to bark at John because he wasn’t following him. LMAO.
Clara is such a sweetie–and she speaks so well! I love that you ask her for design ideas ;)
Sherry, you and John are adorable together. I look forward to reading your posts every day, and checking in on Twitter and Instagram. I still can’t believe that the synchronized swimming dolls IG got the most likes… :D
You guys are awesomesauce.
What are the snarky blogs/sites that you guys are talking about? Are there DIY-bashing sites I don’t know about??
This is my favorite time of year … Blogiversary!
The video with Clara and Burger is my favorite. Doorbells and dogs, will be rivals forever.
Loved it! Especially the Clara part. And great comment about the snarky blogs/comments. Its such a tiny fraction of your readers but like you said, often the “loudest”. You guys always handle it so well (at least that we see, maybe you have a snarky commenter voodoo doll at home lol). No one is going to love every design choice you make but overall we like you guys and your attitude and thats why we come back. So thanks.
I agree, good question and good answer from you guys! Keeping in classy :)
Great question about losing things. I actually had my keys fall off my car (while my husband was driving w/ his keys) and get run over on a major road. I have lost my mind this 4th pregnancy.
Am I the only one who wants to see a picture of Sherry with her middle school haircut?!
Honestly I don’t even know if there’s photographic evidence anymore. There was a bit of a picture burning ceremony when I was in high school (I stole all the photos I hated of ex boyfriends and bad hair and burned them in a metal bin outside). Totally got grounded for that.
xo
s
John’s expressions while Sherry was talking about said hair cut was priceless. LOL
Haha!
xo
s
The video of Clara needs to be sent to Macklemore!
Also if Clara was 25 years older we’d be best friends. Pickles, Macklemore and Newsies! She’s got great taste.
That quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is one of my favorite:
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you will be criticized anyway”.
It is so true and good to live by, can’t please ’em all!
Love it! I have been learning all sorts of inspiring quotes thanks to my good buddy Pinterest lately! Haha!
xo
s
It also reminded me of another quote that I’m pretty sure is of Eleanor’s:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Both are so good. She was a wise woman :)
Smartie pants lady, for sure.
xo
s
Love these videos, look forward to them every year! The end bit with Burger and the doorbell was hilarious!
Also, question: I went the the website you gave for Emerald Park (I loved the background song!) but it’s all in Swedish! How did you download their music? Is it available on iTunes, or Amazon?
I got that from jamendo.com (we like to get fair-use music from there so we know that putting it into videos is cool with the artist along with a credit).
-John
My BFF is in Richmond and I live in Atlanta….Sherry, your BFF is in Atlanta and you live in Richmond (oh, and we’re also in our 30’s, did I mention that?)…coincidence? I think not. Maybe it’s destiny for us to all be BFFs? *sigh* a girl can dream… :)
Loved the videos!
It’s a BFF full circle moment. So funny!
xo
s
I love these videos! You guys are hilarious. And the Clara and Burger video is adorable. Clara is one cool kid.
You guys. I can’t even. Clara and Burger are SO cute and y’all are just too funny! Thanks for being so awesome :)
Hey guys. I just have to share… I attempted to watch this on mute and turned on the captions option on Youtube. Well, the captions are in no way accurate but kind of hilarious…. I can’t wait to watch it with sound later so I know what was actually said hahaha.
Someone did that last year! It was so funny! There was some part about a prostitute and a politician! Hilarious!
xo
s
Okay seriously, these are the worst captions EVER!! When you start to answer the question about regretting a post, it says something about an x-ray! ha ha
“Welsh block up my liars…” HAHAHAHA Had to try the captions now and I think I just peed my pants a little.
They’re hilariously random, right?!
xo
s