Winter Diningland.

Remember yesterday when I showed you that silly little Christmas tree we shared our' first Christmas together with? I used to keep it up at work every Christmas, but since I have a 7 foot legit tree in my office (since I’m front desk, lucky me!) I don’t need to take it to work anymore. I hated to not use it since it’s been bringing me joy faithfully every year since 2005. I needed a table centerpiece in the dining room, so in she went!

I loved all the colorful balls I got when I was my most daring with color, and since I picked up that cute runner from Target a few months ago, (YES I’M OBSESSED WITH THAT PLACE. DON’T JUDGE ME!) it worked out perfectly. Hussy tried to put it away this weekend, but I raced after him yelling NOOOO!!!! THAT STAYS FOR THE PARTY!!!! OMGZZ YOU CUHRAZY! and some junk like that. I’m sure he’s not thrilled with the idea but COME ON! It’s a holiday party! I can at least use this excuse for this weekend. Until I come home from work and it’s put away. (yes hussy, I’m on to you.)

And if you have really good eyeballs, you’ll notice I changed the dining room again.

Yeah… more on that later

O After-Christmas Tree!

Every year around Thanksgiving I go Christmas crazy. We put up our wonderful white tree and decorate it Thanksgiving weekend. I tune to our local radio station that plays nothing but Christmas songs until Christmas day. I also set my Christmas Pandora station at work until I ran out of time on my account And now I even get to decorate the work Christmas tree too. I’m so obsessed with holiday cheer that it’s hard to take down the Christmas tree. Which I can attribute to my childhood, since we’d usually be found with it still up in March.

We always hit Target after Christmas for all the clearance deals and pick up next years Christmas cards (which is always a surprise a year later to remember what we picked out) and I hit the ornament aisles for next year’s color theme. We started dating on Christmas Day 2005, so our first legit xmas was 2006… where we had a 2 foot tall Barbie Tree:

Then the day after Christmas he surprised me with my white tree… which he brought home in his Miata with the top down.

We had pretty much NO ornaments or a tree skirt. But we had Cooper and that was good enough. After Christmas we picked up more red/white/black ornaments for 2008’s Christmas.

And added even more after that Christmas for 2009.

But after 2009’s Christmas, I was sick of the red/white. I switched over to blue and purple to match our other decorations. However, after Christmas this week, I went a little crazy when I saw all the kitschy, perfectly “me” ornaments they had this year:

And here’s how she looks now:

A little crazy since I just threw the new ones on in between what I already had on there, but I love these new ornaments so much! We’re throwing an After-Christmas/New Years party this weekend, so I may put some of them away and keep out the new ones. I can’t bare to put them away already! Also, MUST SHOW OFF NEW STUFF!

No Excuses.

For my absence… except I really actually have some. Like my busted laptop that crashes every time I open a Windows program (WTG FOR REMINDING ME WHY I WISH I COULD AFFORD AN APPLE!). And my crazy crazy job that wears me out. And all the pictures I had saved in folders on my desktop are locked. Which were conveniently labeled “best shots” and is where I throw every good+ edited photo I ever took. The best part is Windows jerked out on me, and now my screen looks like it’s from 1995. I can’t even change my toolbars! Yay me!

However, I’m still getting super sweet comments and emails from you guys even while I’m completely MIA from blogging. And my delightful husband lights a fire under me all the time to get back into this, since I enjoy it so much. SO. I’m going to deal with the crashes until I get a new laptop, which could be anywhere from now to never.

See, I work at this super awesome company that gave everyone in the company a bonus. And they didn’t just send a mass email to all the employees saying “go you for working for us! here’s $400 pretax as profit sharing in our bajillion dollar company.”  I was thankful for anything after not getting a raise for years because of The Economy. Yes, I capitalized The Economy, because it’s a lame excuse for everyone’s financial lives sucking so majorly in at least one way. Anyhow, my new company knows no matter what you do, you’re a big part of the success of the first full year of our hugely successful start up company. We hit a major milestone. Major. And the CEO personally rounded us up to personally hand out personally signed bonuses. To every single employee! It was at the top of my most incredible days ever. It was also very humbling to see someone give back from all her hard work invested into getting her company rolling to the rest of us in such a big way.

The best part about this is that we wanted a camper. Not just any camper, my dad’s old camper. My family stays at the lake most weekends, and it’s so peaceful and relaxing to just get away to this place.

We used to go to a different camp ground back in the 90’s (grandma moment! I’m reliving the glory days!) that had a cafeteria, dances on the weekends with loud music, and lots of hot guys. Ok, so I was 13. That’s pretty much all I cared about other than the music. I wanted so badly to have my own little camper to stay in my own little campsite with my own little family. We made a deal with my dad to buy his camper once he found an upgrade. He found his upgrade, and we’ve been saving like crazy for our a) camper b) campsite which seemed easy enough. But no, we need c) jet skis plus SOME electricity from d) generators. That $1,000 camper deal quickly turned into $6,500. But remember that bonus? It perfectly paid for the camper. Like they KNEW we were going to spend our entire fall and spring cooped up in our house saving for our leisurely spring and summer next year. So. Very. Thankful.

Also, this means no more of this:

Though it was kind of fun until it rained at 3am one night. Which really sounded kind of awesome to be one with nature… until nature made me have to pee, and the bathroom was a 3 minute walk down the road.

OH! And super awesome company also gave out Christmas presents on top of the bonus. THE most comfy blanket ever. Color me jealous of even myself

Scary Mantle-O

What up lame Barry Mannilow pun? Thanks for kicking this post off!

I’m only blogging about this (hey to you, too, regularly scheduled posts again!) because a dear friend asked if I was. How can I not at that point? For starters, work is throwing a Halloween Party. I’m on the party planning committee.

(holler at Michaels slicked back hair!)

So I was given the delightful task, as a design obsessed employee, to help come up with centerpieces. I basically threw together a bunch of random ideas that can be spread about the tables.

I got the skulls, crow, moss rocks, critters, moss and the insides of the ghost at the Dollar Tree. The rat is borrowed from many years ago. The vase, tea kettle, and candle sticks are from Goodwill. The sticks and acorns are from my yard. Lastly, I got fabric and flowers from Joann and went to town.

I stuffed a bunch of acorns in one silver dish, and in the other I filled it with moss and made a skull peek out of it :) The glittery skulls came pre-glittered, which is awesome for $1. The ghost insides are simply a styrofoam ball on top of a styro cone, with two twigs coming out as arms. Then I draped white knit fabric I scored for $2/yard over top and instant boo-tastic ghostness appeared. I don’t own candlesticks. I keep meaning to go shopping for some, but in the meantime I just stuck some small skulls on top of the sticks.

The vase is stuffed with moss, topped with hydrangeas, and oozing with centipedes and twigs with rings and skeletons dangling. I have more ideas up my sleeves, but for a grand total of $25 I was able to whip this mastermantlepiece into shape, an hopefully give you an the rest of the party planning committee some good ideas!

Pumpkin Patch

The fam went to the local pumpkin patch this past weekend. As always, it was so much fun. The kids can make anything fun though :)

 

The sweetest part of this post: The baby/pumpkin in her belly should be born today. I can’t WAIT to meet my very first nephew!

I bought him footed pajama’s that say Mommy’s Little Pumpkin for her baby shower:

 

I saw her sitting next to those pumpkins and thought this picture would be perfect to frame in a shadowbox with the pajamas once he outgrows them, or to hang in a frame next to a picture of him IN the pajamas ;)

I have to add that we picked a cute little pumpkin 2 years ago as well:

That would be my little niece that has pigtails in the pictures above. Oh how they grow so fast!

Here’s to hoping baby William makes it into the world happy and healthy (and mommy too!) today :)

10+11-08=13

That would be the crazy math Drew, the math wizard, did of our engagement anniversary date, and it equaled my favorite number. That’s right, it’s been 2 WHOLE YEARS since we got engaged! So happy engagement anniversary, hussy! I know I’m all about the happiness lately, aren’t I? That’s a good thing!

The scenery on the perfect weathered day:

The two young and in love:

The true photographer taking reign of the camera for a better lit photo:

The sneaky boyfriend letting me to self time a picture of us of the mountains (with the ring sitting on his forefinger!):

The proposal “will you marry me bb?”:

The crybabies:

Staged with a knee on the ground like a good fiance:

And the celebrations, apple picking and cider beer after a call to the rents :):

        

We ended up marrying on 4/18/09. For those who don’t feel like doing the math, 100% completely accidentally that date had the same math equation, with the same answer. 4+18-09=13. <3

Thrifty Thursday: Cut Loose, Footstool.

I’m sure kicking off my Sunday shoes now! My mom picked up this footstool with me, and with my sweetest daughter charm, I convinced her to let me have it. Hey mom! It was worth it! I didn’t even want to put my feet on the before. Now I can’t keep them off! Especially after a long day at my new ultra busy job :)

We found it at one of the estate sales our favorite estate sale putter-onners… put on. Then again, we’ve never attempted to crash any other kind of estate sale. But we do love us some Susan’s Selections. PSA: They take detailed pictures of every item you’ll find at the sale (if you go on the first day, and everything isn’t taken!) and post them here a few days before the sale starts. I love to do some window shopping before hand.

But even with the window shopping, and walking around the house, I didn’t even see this footstool that my mom’s eyes moved to like a MAGNET. It was $5, and I was jealous she spotted it. See, it’s not usually a good idea to go shopping with someone that has similar taste, unless there’s more than one of every item. This is not the case most of the time at estate sales. But like I said in the beginning, she decided to let me have it :)

It originally sold at Dollar General for $8 in 2004. The tag told me so. Sure I didn’t get a booming steal, but with different fabric, it would be worth all $5 she spent.

I realized something over the last couple months. I get the most excited about fall colors than any other colors.

So when fall rolls around, I go hog wild with rich warm colors.  I decided to use that as my inspiration and grabbed some scrap purple fabric to reupholster my new little foot reliever.

It sits so nicely next to my very first upholstery project: the landfill chair, and under my Diversity Thrifty vanity.

Of course, I have this obsession with curvy legs on my furniture.

 

What’s not to love (now!)?

Greetings!

Remember me? I used to blog daily, take tons of pictures, and even spend all my free time either doing projects or researching new ones.

Then life happened. I got that neat new job, that’s super busy. I love it, and I spend all day on my feet which helped me lose 4 lbs.

That wasn’t all that helped, I also started doing Zumba. I don’t know why I never tried it before! I’ve been doing it for 3 weeks  now. LOVE IT.

I almost finished painting the dining room, and I’m just one cover panel away from finishing the kitchen. Seriously, one.

We spent some time at my parent’s campsite, relaxing and enjoying life. I rode on a jetski for the first time, and got up enough courage to drive it. Again with the WHY DIDNT I DO THIS YEARS AGO?!

I also turned 25. A quarter century. I don’t feel that old, fortunately. I also don’t think I look that old. But I had a quarter century crisis and dyed my hair super dark brown. I couldn’t deal with it, so I got it professionally done. I streaked it bleach blonde and burgundy red. I love it now.

However, with all the fun new experiences and changes that have taken place since my last blog post, it wasn’t all roses. My cat, Pooky, passed away. He was 17 years old, and I picked him out when I was just 8 years old. I haven’t taken many pictures of him since I lived at home with him and my mom, so the most recent ones I have were when I was just 19. Which is weird to say, since that’s only 2 years older than he was when he passed! Here’s a few that I have saved on this laptop.

    He was the perfect tuxedo cat. Perfectly lined white, just like a tuxedo. He even had the white gloves and shoes. He looked striking with a red bowtie collar :)

This was back in a time I didn’t yet find out about the invention of makeup. I kind of miss being able to pull it off. If only in my own head.

My mom will be getting his ashes soon, so we’ll be holding a proper funeral. It was hard to take the news, but much harder to console my mom through it.

On a lighter note, she rescued another cat. Drew and I are firm on adopting only animals that need rescuing, and will be signing up in the next week or two with the local SPCA to walk puppies that are cooped up all day waiting to be adopted. I’m excited!

With all that said, not much else here to report. Well, except that the reason I haven’t been rushing to blog is because I got an Ipad. Which is frickin awesome. But I’ll be back again tomorrow with another Thrifty Thursday, so stay tuned!