CATCH UP

It has been a fun last couple of weeks. We went up to Cedar City, UT for my Cousins farewell, which also happened to be on mine and Jeff's anniversary weekend. We managed to get a little alone time in, we took a walk in the park and ate at my favorite restaurant in Cedar from my college days.

He is so cute. I just love him.

His favorite part of my beloved Cedar City is this hilarious sign at Evans Cosmetology school. He laughed so hard when he saw it, he made me stop so he could take pictures. He is a dork!

It was also so much fun to spend time with all my family. We had a good time. My grandmother pictured below is so beautiful. I hope I take after her. I am blessed with two wonderful, beautiful grandmothers.

Then, on the 8th, it was Jeff's Birthday. He is a few months younger than I am so I'm always glad when he finally turns the same age as me, then he can't tease me about being old anymore. I made his favorite jello cake.

I got him an electric violin, I was so glad he liked it! I love listening to him play so it was sort of a gift for me, but he really needed his own violin too. We went over to his parents and all the family in town came for a traditional Bame B-day.

This weekend we just spent relaxing, so I decided to bake my first pie. I made an apple pie from scratch. I'm still too scared to taste it but I hope it turned out alright. I don't have things like a rolling pin or an apple corer so I just made due.

We put an offer in on a house this week so I needed something to occupy my mind. We are still waiting to hear if the bank is going to accept our offer but I can't help decorating the house and planning in my head. I needed a distraction and pie is always a good distraction!

Tonight we are going to see We are Scientist and Kings of Leon so that will be a good distraction too! The tickets were part of my anniversary present for Jeff. We are Scientist was the show we saw on our first date years ago. Since it was the paper anniversary I gave him the concert tickets, a scrap book of him when he was little, and cuff links made from vintage typewriter keys. It was all paper themed.

Keep your fingers crossed for us on the house!

1 year later . . .

During the last year of marriage I have found that a lot of little things about me have changed that I never expected to. I am much less independent than I have ever been before. Being single for 25 years, I was use to doing things on my own. But now, as my sister says, I am whooped - hard core. I have compiled a little list of things that are different since we were married almost a year ago.

1. I fully expect to never take out my trash again.

2. I was once someone who assembled my IKEA and Target furniture all by myself without any electric power tools. Now, when we buy new furniture I get Jeff his bag of electric tools and tell him to have at it.

3. I use to sprawl out and take up my whole queen sized bed. Now, I can't go to bed without Jeff snuggling up next to me.

4. I watch sports.

5. I don't take time to read my phone, computer, or TV manuals anymore, I just have Jeff show me how to do it.

6. If Jeff works on the weekend, I have no idea how to occupy my time. This is where my nesting projects come in handy.

7. I feel my heart sink a little every time I see a little kid. I can barely wait to have kids, be a mother, and see what a wonderful dad Jeff is going to be.

8. We go out less, I read more.

9. I cook.

10. I don't bother searching for new music or bands that I might like, I just have Jeff upload new play lists of bands HE thinks I might like onto my ipod. (I've actually found a lot more and better music this way).

Basically, what a lot of this list says about me is that I have become useless and lazy since getting married. With that aside, I love being married, and maybe it isn't such a bad thing to rely on someone else to do certain things. I really do feel like we work as a team very well. I can't imagine being single again living day to day without him. I loved being single, I loved being independent, but I love him A LOT more. Lets just hope I do eventually get off my butt and take out the trash myself!

Projects

So I've been doing a couple projects to keep myself busy lately - I'm still nesting. Here are couple of my favorites from the last couple months-

We needed storage in our office/guest/garage room. It is a room with many purposes and requires storage. So this is an old target dresser that I wasn't using anymore, being from Target, it was cheap and the drawers broke after just a year. So I decided to turn

it into shelves.

I painted the inside that same color I painted my old 50's school desk and stapled some Old Navy wrapping paper to the back. I had the paint on hand and the wood was maybe $10- and I kept myself entertained for an hour or two.

I put our record player,

some records and bins for

Jeff's school stuff. Not the

cutest thing in the world but it

works and it was cheap.

These curtains and pillow were my favorite project though. I made these for Heather's Birthday. The yellow matches her couch perfectly! The gray on the sides match her kitchen.

I am such a bad seamstress; every time I make something for someone else I swear that I will not put my sewing inefficiencies on other people and masquerade them as gifts. I conclude though that I can't help it.

I like to make things with my hands, no matter how they turn out. I think it is a sickness. I guess we will see if Heather actually ends up hanging them up, even with all the mistakes. I did have fun though, The two curtains and pillow just took a couple days after work and a Sat. morning. I only stressed out once (when I made a big mistake that could not be fixed) but I hope I hide it well. Next time I will be sewing for myself though.

Scavenger

My favorite blog Apartment Therapy has this post called "Scavenger" where they showcase super neat furniture finds from Craigslist. I drool over all the great things they find in places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco and LA. About a week or so ago in LA they showed a Crate and Barrel Petrie Sofa, in a perfect color for my house, for get this - $500. That is such a great deal considering the store price is $1500! Things like this make me drool all over my desk at work and make me wish I live in a real metropolitan city.

I thought to myself today, after looking at a great danish styled mid century modern kitchen table - maybe, just maybe, Las Vegas has some hidden treasures. So I went on a "Scavenger" hunt of my own on our local Craigslist site. I often check Craigslist for little things I think I need, but never really look with the idea that I could decorate my whole home with this stuff. Today, while searching for random things, I found some really neat stuff.

This sofa was found when I searched for "antiques." True, it is kind of out there, but I'd love an old piece like this to put in like a casual basement type rec/play room someday. It is just fun and makes me grin. But priced at the same $$ as my beloved Petrie sofa it doesn't seem like that great of a deal.
Seriously, how fun would these be? The couch and chairs are gross, and probably smell like smoke since this set came from a Casino Furniture Liquidator, But the yellow coffee table and side tables are adorable. They have good lines too so if bright yellow isn't your thing you could just spray paint them a high gloss white. Not bad. The whole lot is $250, but I'm sure just the tables alone couldn't be that expensive.
This lamp is kinda cool - and at $10 it is a deal. Just that large of a round shade would be 3x that much at Target.
The last is my FAVORITE! Seriously a rare find in Las Vegas. An actual Eames Atomic Chair. A perfect chair for the atomic testing valley. If I knew how, I would snatch this up and re- upholster it like that. This chair is just $175. It was posted last week so I'm sure it is gone. I guess I should do random searches like this more often.

These finds might not be as great as the ones featured on the Blog but I was pretty impressed with what little Las Vegas had to offer. I'd still really love to live in real city like San Fransisco though. . .

I LOVE being sick

Okay, so I know the title of this blog seems very unlikely but it is true. For the last couple of weeks I have been feeling a little crummy. At first I did what all of us do, blamed it on not getting enough sleep, to what I ate that day, whatever my excuse I just powered through, kept working and even went on vacation. Finally, last Wednesday I was at work FREEZING, a fever had finally caught me. I was just too worn down so I decided to go home and sleep until the fever broke. I ended up spending 2 1/2 days at home sick. I don't know if others of you are like this but I NEVER stay home sick with just a cold - I have to be down and out, vomiting - or completely unable to make it out the door for me to stay home from work. I am not sure why I feel the need to tough it out and not let myself rest, but last week I finally actually stayed home with a cold. It was AMAZING! I felt so much better so much faster, I am still a little sick but nothing compared to last week. Since Jeff was out of school we just hung out, stayed in our pajamas till noon, watched movies and drank lots of Gatorade. I can't remember the last time I didn't get out of bed till noon, it was fantastic, even if I was sick. Next time I get sick I am going to let myself rest! This was an "aah ha" moment for me - resting when ill is a good thing, not weak.

It hit me too that Jeff and I are coming up on our year anniversary in September. It does not seem like it has been that long at all! I still can't believe that after all this time he hasn't gotten on my nerves yet? I know that sounds silly but it is actually amazing. Even when I was with him 24/7 last week when I was sick he never once was annoying?!? On the contrary, I was so sad to leave him on Friday to go into work. I just want to snuggle up to him and listen to his silly jokes and stories for always. I could never imagine being with anyone else, I am so glad that I truly found my best friend to spend eternity with. I could not ask for a better husband, he knows me so well, takes great care of me when I don't, and has the most generous heart. Now - what do you get the love of your life for a 1 year anniversary present?

NESTING

HELP! I am going through this crazy nesting phase right now! This shouldn't be a bad thing except that I am spending the majority of my time on designing blogs or googling "mid-century modern decor" images all day long. When I get like this it is very hard to focus, I just want to re-do every room in our apartment . . . and really in everyone else's house too. This usually results in spending too much of our budget on home decor and a lot of half finished projects. How do I focus or put an end to this madness?

I've been trying to focus by making this phase more of a personl design defining point, really looking at what I want my home to look like and how I want it to come together over the next few years. In this, I feel hopeless as well, I like way too many design eras and styles. My home will have to be eclectic to fit everything I love in. I think I can have it all work out though. I love the clean lines of mid-century modern and the art deco eras for the over all theme but then I'd like to have punches of modern graphic designs or a baroque styled piece of furniture scattered though out my house to give it a little more interest and personlity. I'm still trying to find some blog or design spread that fits this style for some inspiration, but most likely if I do find an inspirational piece then that will just spur more desire for more decorating and more nesting and more projects. Argh! How can I win this battle?

THE HOUSE DRESS SEARCH

I am so excited. I have been searching for cute little retro house dresses that are modest for a long time and I feel like I am finally starting to hit the jack pot. I'm not sure if more people are just making them now or if I finally am just stumbling onto the right places. First off, Jeff got me this adorable navy shirt wrap dress from Target for my Birthday. I love that it is long enough, has sleeves and, the best thing of all, it has pockets. Getting a cute little number like that made an already great Birthday even better. (When I get them uploaded I will put some pictures of our family gathering from my Birthday on here)

Now, thanks to one of my new favorite blogs - Design Mom - and being bored at work - I found another great little store that sells great house dresses. The Shabby Apple - http://www.shabbyapple.com/default.aspx - they have a ton of cute dresses that really wont break the bank, especially when they have great sales. Pictured are a couple of my favorites.
I love that retro dresses are in style right now.

I think that it is pretty funny the way things work out. When I was in college I really thought I wanted to be a career woman, that the traditional roles for women were so degrading and I wanted to do something better. I'm not saying that I didn't want to have kids or a family, I did, but I was going to do it on my own-by my terms. Now that I am married I can hardly wait to start a family. Four years later I wish I could quit my job tomorrow to be a full time mom running around in little 50's house dresses, sewing, baking and teaching my children. I still want to do things my own way but I now no longer take shame in those traditional roles that have been given to women; instead I relish in them, take great pride in how important the role of a woman is (which I do understand to be more than baking and sewing). So, yes, now I get very excited over a dress and love it.