Casual Fridays

28 Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 18:53:00 +0000

When I realized a little while before my birthday that I would be turning 28 this year, I felt old. I know that 28 isn't really that old, but when you are turning 28 it feels that way. I originally had this plan that I would get my life together this year and blog about it. Then I realized that would be too much work. I figured I would leave my life in its slightly shabby but pretty great state and just focus on a few goals. Some of them are fun, some are big kid stuff that needs to be done and all of them are things I want to do. Some of them are blog worthy and others are kinda boring, but I thought I would share the list. Here you go:

1. Read 28 books
2. List to 28 audio books
3. Run a 5k {run the whole thing}
4. Lose 40 pounds
5. Host a girls craft night or cookie exchange
6. Finish 28 in progress projects
7. Complete 2014 Project Life album
8. Do 3 Bible studies
9. Read/listen to the Bible
10. Make a long term financial plan
11. Eliminate paper clutter
12. Plant flowers in the front of the house
13. 52 week savings plan for Christmas
14. Blog twice a week
15. Finish unpacking
16. Decorate the guest room
17. Look for a new job
18. Donate to a different charity every month
19. Create a housework routine
20. Walk the dogs at least twice a week
21. Donate blood
22. Make and give away 28 things
23. Read/complete 3 self improvement books
24. Make eating a fruit or veggie at every meal a habit
25. Always send thank you notes
26. Clean out my craft room so everything can be put away
27. Learn to shoot my camera in manual
28. Plan two fun dates every month

Painting--Picking the Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 01:32:00 +0000

Pretty much 90% of the new house needed new paint. I don't have a ton of painting experience (have helped a couple friends, but other than that, I'm a painting novice). What did I do? I turned to Pinterest of course.

The very first thing we did was figure out which rooms needed to be painted and what colors we wanted to use. This part can be done before you move in for the most part. Alex and I collaborated on pretty much every room, so that took a little more time than if I had just picked them out myself.

When picking paint colors, make sure you look at them both in "inside" and "outside" light. It is crazy how colors could look so different inside and outside. If you room has a lot of natural light, you will want to make sure you like how it looks in the sunlight. If you aren't going to get a lot of natural light, it will be more important that it looks good in artificial light.

Another tip we followed when it came to a couple of colors is to buy the little samples before picking a final color. Some people will paint the samples directly on the wall but I chose to paint them onto poster board so I could have the samples painted before we moved and so that we could move them around the room. It really helped us finalize a couple of colors. This is especially important if you are choosing a bold color. I let Alex pick the color for the guest room without getting samples first and I ended up hating the color.

Now after you pick your colors, you have to pick your finish.

That is a pretty quick and basic primer. I am not going to pretend to be an expert on paint, so if you have any questions, you will have to ask Google or my Dad. Speaking of my dad, we went with Valspar brand paint because my Dad likes Valspar. While I think it is important to use a high quality paint, I am not sure it really matters which high quality paint you use (if it is cheap, its not high quality).

Hopefully it won't be so long before my next post, but we will just have to see what life throws my way.

The Dreaded Chore of Packing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Today let's talk about packing. I don't mind the first few days of packing but by the second half of the project, I am just done. When we moved last time we didn't have a ton of time to pack, so pretty much everything got put where it would fit when I had a box to put it in. As a result, it took forever to find some things. I guess one advantage was that we unpacked pretty quick because we could not find out can opener. Despite that, I decided that this time I wanted to be a lot more organized.

Like most things, I think packing goes a lot smoother if you have a plan. The very best place to start, in my opinion, is figuring out who will do what. I know some people have movers come and pack everything up but we certainly could not afford that. Plus, I am too much of a control freak for that. Unless you live by yourself, you have other people in your home who can help with the packing process. If those people are small, they probably won't be much help but I bet you can get them to at least pack some of their toys or something.

In my home, it is me, Alex (boyfriend), and Scout (dog). Despite the fact that we constantly ask Scout to help around the house, he does not have opposable thumbs and therefore thinks he does not have to contribute. We are still working on that attitude, but progress is slow.

So that leaves me and Alex. This will be our 3.5th move in the four years we have been dating (moved him into my Westport apartment, moved both of us to the Waldo house, moved both of us into an apartment, moving both of us into the new house). So we are old pros at this. Thing is though, Alex doesn't much care for packing and is pretty good at procrastinating. Rather than let these facts frustrate me and make an already unpleasant process more unpleasant, this time around, I chose to adjust my expectations. We made a deal before any packing took place that I would pack everything but his closet if he would be in charge of making sure I had enough boxes. This worked out really well for us (and Alex got some help from my mom who found lots of good boxes). Before you get started, figure out what works for you and it will be much less stress later on.

When it comes to packing, my style is pack early and pack often. Since packing isn't really something I enjoy, I like to spread it out so I don't get burned out. Plus, we tend to be busy, so I want to make sure everything gets done before moving day.

Generally, I start with décor. You don't need pictures on the wall or other sit around stuff. Then I move on to other stuff we can live without until we move. All of my craft stuff got packed up first because I would be too busy with the move to do any new projects. Another tip is to always pack like things together--this will make it so much easier when you are looking for your can opener post move. Use fabric from your stash and plastic grocery bags as box filler.

The way in which I was most organized for this move was in labeling the boxes. Each room got a color of duct tape assigned to it. After I packed and sealed each box, I took a piece of paper and wrote what was in the box and put the correct color of duct tape on it. I also wrote on the tape which room it went into just in case. That way it was super easy to know which box went where in the new house. We ended up putting everything in the garage and then took boxes upstairs as we were ready to unpack them. If you have other people putting boxes into rooms, I would say the duct tape is a must, but since it was just us and we were moving slow, we probably would have been okay with just labeling.

Another tip is use what you have. Use bags and suitcases to hold stuff. Depending on how you are moving you can also pack stuff in drawers.

To pack our hanging clothes, I used drawstring trash bags. It made everything super quick. I just bunched some clothes together (still hanging up) and slipped them in a trash bag. Then I tied up the drawstring and was able to carry four or five times as many clothes in one trip.

After you figure out a system, the rest really is just grunt work. I packed box after box and had no idea how we had so much stuff in such a tiny space. But it all got done eventually. My rule is that if people are going to help us move, everything has to be packed before they get there. Anything that is not packed is not going to get moved. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone asks you to help them move and then when you show you, you end up sitting around for hours while they finish packing.

Once everything was packed, it was time to move from point A to point B. But that is a post for another day.

Adventures in Home Buying Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Last post in my Adventures in Home Buying mini-series!

After the offer was accepted we had a certain amount of time (I think it was ten days) to set up inspections. We had a whole house inspection as well as Radon testing and a termite inspection. The whole house inspection was recommended for us because it was our first home and we didn't really know what to look for and also weren't really in a position to deal with any big surprises. You can Google Radon if you want but it is a gas that leaches into the house from the ground and can apparently give you cancer. Some people we talked to thought it was no big deal but we went with it anyway.

Alex wasn't able to take off work for the inspection so I had his dad come with me because he is a former building inspector so he knows his stuff. The sellers weren't there, so it was me and Alex's dad plus someone from our realtor's office (he could not be there himself because he was moving that day) and the inspectors. One guy did the termites and the other guy had set up the Radon tester and then did the whole house inspection. Mostly I just stood around and took pictures for my own planning purposes why the professionals did their thing.

The house inspector did this whole huge and detailed report with a bunch of pictures. He pretty much looked at everything and then some. He gave me a preliminary report on the spot and by the end of the day the whole detailed report was online for me to look at.

We spent the evening digesting all of the information we had gotten and came up with the list of things we wanted the seller to fix. We ended up deciding we wanted them to address an issue in the attic, termites in the backyard (luckily no damage to the house yet), some grading issues and Radon (it tested like four times the recommended amount).

After a little bit of negotiating, we got to a final agreement. We told them what we wanted them to do and then they got bids on the work and came back to us with a counter offer. Looking back the only thing I would change is that I would not have had them do the grading--they did a shabby job and we could have done it much better ourselves.

We then had a bit of a lull because we set our closing date for closer to the expiration of our lease. We got the financing squared away and then the weekend before we closed we had our final walk through. The sellers had basically moved out by then so it was kind of neat to see the house empty and waiting for our stuff.

Closing was pretty uneventful. The sellers closed earlier in the day and my closing was closer to lunch because I had a hearing in the morning that I needed to go to for work. Other than the title company not having any outside signage so it was a little hard to find, everything went smooth. Whenever I am signing something my lawyer instincts kick in and I like to actually read over it so I have a general idea of what I am agreeing to. Then we got the keys but had to wait a couple of hours for the money to clear before we could actually go in.

It was super fun to walk into our house for the first time when it was really ours. We took some cleaning stuff with us because the sellers left it kind of a mess and packed up the dog and just chilled for a few hours. We opened a bottle of champagne and just soaked it all in. Then the hard work began...

Adventures in Home Buying Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:20:00 +0000

{{I started typing this up forever ago and then we moved so I was swamped. Sorry!}}

Okay, we're back now and ready to go find a house. Our realtor set us up on his company's website where we had access to all MLS listings. I did a lot of online looking and probably reviewed a couple hundred houses. I was able to mark the ones I liked so we could go look at them.
We looked at houses over two weekends. The first weekend we looked at 9 or 10 in the area I really wanted to buy in. Of those, we kept two on the list of places we would consider. I will be honest, I was pretty disappointed. This first set was in the area I wanted but not really the house that I wanted. The next weekend, we looked at probably 16-18 places in the other area we were considering. It was right after it was in the news that interest rates were going back up, so some of the places that were available on Thursday when I sent the realtor the list of places we wanted to see already had offers on them when we looked on Saturday. The second set were the house I wanted but my second choice of area.

How did we pick the house we ended up buying out of all the others? To be honest, it was the first (and only) house that I got excited about. It was the only house we looked at that I could really picture us living in and being happy in. There were other houses that I thought would be fine and other houses that I thought we could live in after 50 projects were done, but this one just gave me that "this could be our new home" feeling. That's a lot of help, right? The funny thing is that I think a lot of people make big decisions this way.

We looked at a few more houses that day after we saw the one we really liked. We also went to a couple of open houses with my parents the next day but by the end of the weekend we were ready to pull the trigger.

Putting in our offer was quite the experience, so bear with me. We set up a meeting with our realtor for Monday after work to do the offer paperwork. Mid-morning, Alex sent me a text saying his buddy had asked him to play softball that night. I told Alex that if he could get our meeting moved to make it all work, go for it. The meeting got moved up and we both left work early to be there. We talked to the realtor about what we wanted to spend on the house and he suggested offering an initial amount that was lower than I thought we would offer, but since he knew what he was doing and we did not, we went with it. He gave the sellers a deadline of like 10:00 p.m. that night to respond.

Alex ended up having to leave early to get to his game on time. He was walking out the door when I got home and since we couldn't take the dog to the fields, I stayed home. I was super nervous all night waiting to hear back.

Around 8:30 or 9:00ish I think our realtor calls and says that the sellers got another offer at the same time as ours. The other offer was higher but they wanted to give us a chance to counter. And we needed to do it within the next half hour. I call Alex and he doesn't answer so I text him and wait five minutes. I call him again and he still does not answer. I leave a message telling him to call me back ASAP. I was pretty much freaking out because I knew that even if I did not want to, I would resent the heck out of him if we missed out on the house we both loved because he was playing softball. I also knew that even though the house would be in my name I couldn't pull the trigger without him saying okay. Then I decided to just blow up his phone and called him over and over again until he answered.

25 minutes after I called him the first time, he finally called me back. We agreed on a counter and let our realtor know who passed it onto the sellers. A couple long hours later they accepted. It was stressful. My advise is that if you are putting an offer in on a house and you have another individual whose input you need, don't be in a different place from them while you are waiting on a response. Its not a good idea.

Okay friends, one more post on the process then I will finally get around to posting pictures of the new house :)

Adventures in Home Buying Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 20:26:00 +0000

And we're back!

I want to start with the preface that none of this should be taken as legal or any other kind of official advice. I just wanted to share my experience.

We looked at financing before we started looking at houses. I guess some people do it differently, but I wanted to know what I could afford before I started looking so I didn't fall in love with something out of my price range. I got connected with one of the mortgage ladies at the bank where I have all of my accounts and she was super helpful. It is a local bank, and I think that helps. I don't think I would have gotten the same level of service at a big national bank. I did get pre-approved for quite a bit more than we are going to end up spending. I am glad we found something at lower price point because it would have been a real stretch to afford the max that the bank would give.

I will offer one piece of advice on the financial aspect of this adventure--it will be more expensive than you think so figure out what you think you can afford and go less than that.

Around the same time I started talking to the bank about financing, I also contacted a realtor. As we didn't know the first thing about buying a house, we decided we needed someone to help us. I have a general rule against doing business with friends. Nothing good comes of it. In this case we stretched the rule a little bit and went with someone who is an old friend of my dad. It ended up working really well because we got someone we felt like we could trust and was looking out for us but no one that we are close to. I would definitely recommend getting a referral from someone.

Before we started looking, Alex and I went though each part of a house and talked about what we wanted and what we did not as well as what was non-negotiable (we had to have a fence for the dog) and what would be nice (a deck). We talked about what cities & school districts we would be willing to look in.

This would be a good point to make sure you know whose opinions really count in this process. I was the one who was actually purchasing the house, but Alex's opinions were important too. We took advice from other people but ultimately knew that we were the ones who would be deciding.

This is also a good point to realize that unless you are SUPER lucky or have unlimited resources, you are going to have to make sacrifices in what you want. I had my heart set on finding a house on the Kansas side close to where my parents live and was super upset when we started looking and realized that with our budget we weren't going to find something in that area that was the size & layout that we wanted. I guess all along I knew that I wasn't going to find exactly what I wanted where I wanted it to be in the price range that I could afford but it still broke my heart a little bit when I realized that it wasn't going to work out for us in my first choice area.

I will be back next time to talk about how we found our new house.

Adventures in Home Buying Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:11:00 +0000

(So remember in my last post eight months ago when I said that 2012 kinda sucked. Well joke was on me and 2013 has proven itself to be unlucky thus far. But today the sun is shining so lets move on).

We bought a zoo! Just kidding. We are almost done with the process of buying our first house, which seemed like an excellent place to start up blogging again. I want to start at the beginning because I really had no idea what this process would be like. So hopefully if you are getting ready to buy your first house, this will help you out.

A little bit of background before we begin. In college, I lived in the dorms my freshman and sophomore year (at the time, the school had a rule that you have to live on campus your first three years unless you were living with your parents). Then my junior year I was in Cambridge and we lived in a dorm but had a lot more freedom (and a housekeeper which was nice). When I got back, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to stand living on campus for my senior year, so I rented a duplex with a couple of my sorority sisters.

After college we finished out the lease on the duplex then in the fall right before I started law school, I moved into a little apartment in mid-town KC with another sorority sister. It wasn't exactly high class but it was cheap and the location was great for school and work. My sorority sister moved out after a year and a friend from law school moved in. She stayed for a year too then Alex moved in. We had only been dating for a year and looking back on it, that doesn't seem like much time before making a big commitment like living together. But I needed a roommate and he needed out of his parents' house so we did it. I like to think that having three roommates in three years doesn't say anything about me, but who knows.

Alex was never really a fan of the apartment, so after I finished the bar exam, we started looking for a new place to live. We wanted to rent a house instead of an apartment, so it took a while. My experience when looking for a place to rent in Kansas City is that you have to pick an area where you would like to live and drive around, calling all the places you would consider. We ended up finding a cute (and new) little house that was really nice. I'm not going to go into the whole ordeal here, but after a little over a year, we had to move because the guy who owned the house stopped paying the bank.

We had planned on renting that house for about 18 months then buying but due to a multitude of circumstances beyond our control, that didn't happen. Right after Christmas, we had to find a new place within a couple of weeks. We ended up with a short term lease in a cheap apartment in a suburb close to where some of our friends live. It was always supposed to be temporary and we don't really fit there (going from a house back to an apartment really sucked).

With our lease getting close to being done, we knew it was decision making time. We decided to buy rather than rent for a few reasons. First, I am sick of renting and not being able to decorate and being at the mercy of a landlord. Also, the financial and housing markets aligned and so we just decided to go for it.

Deciding we wanted to buy was the easy part. Deciding how to go about it was considerably more complicated. We are not married but plan on being someday (don't ask me when--God is doing his best to make sure we take our time on that one). Since we aren't married, we did not feel like it was a good idea for both of us to own the house. Heaven forbid something should happen, we just didn't want to deal with the mess. Financially, it made more sense for me to buy so that is the route we are taking. I am sure a lot of people have had great experiences buying a home with a boyfriend/girlfriend, but the lawyer in me just wouldn't let me do it.

Looking back on it, these seemed like big decisions but in hindsight, they were just the tip of the iceberg. Check back soon for part two of our latest big adventure.

Imperfect Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:28:00 +0000

If I am being honest, I've not been the biggest fan of 2012. I am not super bummed to see it go. The symbolic new start that the new year brings is so refreshing. I had big plans for 2013. Then I realized that was my problem.

Big Plans.

I have so many big plans that I have gotten bogged down in being bummed that the big result isn't quite where I want it to be.

I've been too bogged down being bummed that Alex and I aren't ready to get married that I haven't been enjoying our time together.

I've been too bogged down being bummed by our living situation to enjoy making it into our home.

I've been too bogged down being bummed that I don't have a bikini body to really figure out how to get healthy.

And the list goes on.

So I decided to ditch all the big plans for 2013. I'm going to replace them instead with little plans. My New Year's Resolution is to be satisfied with Imperfect Progress. I am going to focus on the baby steps instead of the end result. It is not realistic to go from zero to a hundred in one step. So I am going to quit trying to go from zero to a hundred. I'm going to go from zero to one to two. And eventually I will get to a hundred. Sure it will take a while but I'm going to be okay with that.

So there's my resolution for 2013: Imperfect Progress. What's yours?

Wedding Gift

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:00:00 +0000

One of my sorority sisters got married this past summer and when I saw this on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to do something like it for her gift.

Source: occasionsonline.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Here's my take:

Basically the idea is to put a bunch of bottles of champagne in a gift basket and put a little tag on each one telling them when to drink it. I put a note on the front that kind of explained the gift (it didn't print well and I waited until the last minute so I couldn't really get it right.)

The one with the baby tag is sparkling grape juice and the others were different types of reasonably priced champagne. I used some washi tape from Target to embellish the tags. The basket is from Hobby Lobby--it needs to be something sturdy enough to hold the bottles. You can't really tell from these pictures but instead of using tissue, I used extra bridesmaid dress fabric (the dresses we picked were long but we had them altered to be knee length since it was a summer wedding).

It was really a super easy gift to put together and I loved how it turned out. You could customize it to the couple really easily. Sorry my pictures aren't better. I forgot to photograph it at home so had to snap a few quick pictures during the shower.

Life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:59:00 +0000

Hey friends!

Sorry for my absence the last couple of weeks just after I got things going again. I had something come up that pretty much shut me down for a couple of weeks. Its not something I want to talk about just yet because the situation isn't fully resolved yet. I'm trying really hard to let go and let God handle the situation. I know that He is trying to teach me really great things out of this whole ordeal and I have been trying to reflect on that instead of worrying.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We were busy, of course, but enjoyed the weekend. I'm pretty sure that Christmas will be here before we know it and then 2013 will bring a fresh start. I personally plan on using the new year to get a few different areas of my life a little more sorted out. Some of them are big projects, some not so much, but I'm thinking I will probably share some of them here with you all.

So that's more or less (probably less) of what's going on here. Here's a little something to think about for this week:

Source: redletterwords.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Cinco de Mayo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Once upon a time we had a Cinco de Mayo party. Back in May. I took pictures of it for a blog post and never wrote it. Better late than never right?

This was so long ago I can't even remember what we ate. Probably tacos. Whenever I think of Cinco de Mayo I think of the party the people in my study abroad program threw for our British friends when I was in England. It was an epic party complete with hillbilly margaritas (we could not for the life of us figure out how to make a good margarita with the ingredients available to us so one of the guy's mom saved the day and sent us a recipe that used beer--it was delicious) and Mexican wrestling (our British friends managed to convince school officials that it was an American tradition so they should not force us to stop despite the fact that we were creating a ruckus outside at night during exam time).

Queens Wing kids--those were the days

Anyway back to this year. Apparently all I took pictures of are the drinks. It may be more accurate that the only pictures that survived my computer crash are those of the drinks. Either way, here you are:

Margaritas and limes--a Cinco de Mayo staple

The whole set up. I put a white sangria type drink in the drink stand. And a sneak peak at our old coffee station (I have since rearranged a time or two)

If I had the resources (money and storage space) I would serve drinks in mason jars at every party. The straws are from Target.

Check back soon to see what other random pictures I find on my computer to post :)

Alex's Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:00:00 +0000

So Alex had a birthday. Back in June. I threw him a birthday party. I took pictures for a blog post and never wrote it. Better late than never, right? I procrastinated a little too much and didn't get quite as much done as I would of liked but it was fun none the less. The party was beer themed because Alex likes beer.

I cheated and ordered cupcakes for dessert. I got a Groupon for a place that delivered and let Alex pick the flavors. They were delicious. The Boulevard (a local brewery) thing came from my dad. I'm not sure if it was originally supposed to hold bottles or candles or what. It held the cupcakes nicely.

Dinner was hot dogs and a topping bar. Think of it kinda like all those new frozen yogurt shops but with hot dogs instead of ice cream. I picked that because it was relatively cheap, relatively easy and did not require me to turn on the oven (it was hot this summer).

The little bowls came from Target. I was going for the colors in the Boulevard logo as my color scheme. The table decorations were kind of lame but I just used whatever I could find.

The idea was that everyone would bring a six pack or so to share so people could try different beers. That didn't go so well but I think that was partly because we didn't push the issue. I set up the drink station with small glasses for tasking and big glasses for full beers. Plus a bowl full of lemons because I like lemon in my beer. And bottle openers too.

I had stuff to play games (drinking games) but we didn't end up doing anything other than sitting around and chatting. It was a fun party (I had fun at least) and we got to hang out with some pretty cool people. Anytime Alex gets to talk to people he's a happy camper. :)

Happy Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Happy Halloween!

Being a Grown Up Kind Of Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:52:00 +0000

Sorry for the long absence friends. I've been dealing with some grown up growing pains lately and have been having a hard time getting my thoughts sorted out. I've also kind of been having a blogging identity crisis but I think I've finally come to terms with what I want to do.

So what's new? Mostly just being really busy living and trying to figure out life.

One of my big projects right now is trying to get a healthier. I've spent the last year trying to make up for being socially deprived during law school and a result, I've put on some weight. But I'm working on it and will probably share a little about that along the way.

Hope everyone is having a great day and happy first day of basketball season!

A Day in My Life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:06:00 +0000

One of the blogs I read is doing a day in the life link up and I thought, hey that's something I can do that doesn't require any pictures so I don't have to be at my laptop. My poor laptop has been super neglected since my boss decided we needed iPads for work. So here you go:

6:20--My first alarm on my phone goes off. I used to pretend that I actually got up when this happened but now I'm more honest with myself and really this alarm just wakes me up. I use this time to wake up slowly, pray or fall back asleep.

6:40--My alarm clock starts going off. This is (sort of) my actual cue to get out of bed. What actually happens is that by now, Alex's two alarms have gone off. If he gets up with his alarm, then I get out of bed halfway through his shower so I can take a shower when he is done. Sometimes if he was slow getting out of bed and needs to shave, I will shower first because I can get my whole shower in before he is done shaving.

7:00--On a good morning I am out of the shower by now. If its a late morning I'm just getting in the shower. Then I get dressed, do my hair (which means I brush it and put mousse in it) and wipe down the sink and toilet in the master bath. Then I move to our guest bath to do my make-up and wipe down the sink and toilet in there. Wiping down the bathrooms takes two seconds in the morning and means that if we have unexpected company the bathrooms aren't gross.

7:15-7:45--Breakfast gets made by whoever got to the kitchen first, we pack our lunches and coffee/drinks for the day (I take two water bottles to work with me plus whatever I am drinking that morning) and if we have time eat breakfast and watch the news. If not breakfasts get packed up to take to work. If by some miracle I have extra time I will pick up or switch laundry or something like that. Then I make sure I have my stuff for the day and head out a few minutes after Alex.

8:00-4:30--Work. I work at a tiny law firm so what I do every day varies a lot. Sometimes it is research, sometimes writing a memo or drafting pleadings, sometimes I go to court or do a million other things.

4:30--Leave work. Here is where things get interesting. If I am going straight home it only takes me 15 or 20 minutes depending on traffic. Sometimes I will run an errand or go to the gym on my way home. If we are having dinner at home I will start cooking when I get home and usually put on some trashy TV and empty the dishwasher/deal with laundry until Alex gets home a little before 6. Then we eat and he cleans up the dishes (whoever does not cook cleans up). Then we will either run errands or maybe hang out at home and watch TV or go to they gym together if neither of us has been yet that day.

If something is going on that night, like we plan on going out to dinner or to a game or something, I will usually go straight home and try to get a couple of things done around the house while I wait for Alex.

11:00--Bedtime, although lately we have been watching an episode of Game of Thrones while we lay in bed so we don't turn the TV off until later.

Weekends are a whole 'nother ball game. Pretty much there is no normal weekend for us. Last Sunday included tailgating, Chiefs game, batting practice for Alex and two-year-old wrangling for me, dinner at Pizza Street (not a good idea) then chilling at home. Last Saturday I got my oil changed then we went to brunch/lunch and then zoo and met up with some people to watch the Mizzou game and hang out. Last Friday night Alex was helping his dad with a boyscout thing so I got to relax and home and enjoy the quiet.

So there you have it, a day in my life. It isn't much, but its where I am right now. Ask me again in a few months and who knows what it will be like. That's the great thing about life, I guess.

At Home Drive In

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Here's a super old post for you. I am a huge college basketball fan. Always have been always will be. My team of choice is of course the Kansas Jayhawks. If you ask my dad, he will probably tell you that my first words were Danny Manning. This past spring, Coach Self took a group of boys who weren't supposed to amount to much of anything and took them to New Orleans. Not everyday your team makes it that far, so we had to do something to celebrate. We have an extraordinarily large tv but unfortunately not an extraordinarily large living room. So in order to accommodate the number of people we wanted to accommodate, we moved the party outside.

We borrowed a projector from my parents (they have the coolest stuff at their house). It wasn't the prettiest, but we were able to finagle everything so that we could hook the projector to a cable box (which is luckily plugged in right by a window at the back of the house). In case you were wondering, the white fabric is a scrap I found to hang on the cord so no one would trip over it after it got dark.

Here is my sweet set up. Yes that is an arm chair in my backyard. It is from college and I keep it in the garage for backyard gatherings. I tried to give it away for free on Craigslist but no one came to pick it up so I figure I will keep it for outdoor furniture as long as I can convince people to move it for me.

In case you were wondering, they won in the Final Four (the game we watched in these pictures) then lost to Kentucky in the championship game. Broke my heart, but they break my heart every time they lose. ROCK CHALK!

Wine Rack From Pallet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 03:28:00 +0000

I can't take credit for this project--it was a Christmas gift from my aunt who lives in Nebraska. But I love love love it and I just had to show it to you all. I wish that there was a good place in my house now to display it where everyone could see it, but this house is just a bit too small. However, when I live in a house that isn't a rental, its totally going on the wall somewhere.

Look how much wine it holds. Alex and I realized recently that we had become wine hoarders--we kept buying it but never drinking it. Such a bad problem to have. But we are working on remedying the situation. I do think we are going to stay mostly beer people though.

Bridal Shower Games

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Like I mentioned in my last post, I was on Team Decorations/Games for my friend's shower. I wasn't really going to plan any games at first becasue I fall into the category of people who don't like shower games. Activities I am okay with most of the time. But I think that most of the time shower games are awkward/boring/unnecessary or a combination of all three. Then a few weeks before the shower, I was having dinenr with the Bride and she happened to mention how she had been at a bridal shower for someone else the weekend before and it was so boring because they didn't have any games. Whelp, there goes my plan. Games it is.

I'm pretty sure we only planned the shower to be 2 hours long but it may have been three. (Alex would finish that last sentence with "I've drank since then" which apprently is a good excuse for not remembering things). Factoring in socializing and opening presents I knew that we weren't going to have a ton of time to do much else. But I get super parnoid and like to over plan, so I planned to games and one activity. And then the Bride was almost an hour late so we pretty much only did one game.

The game we didn't do is the one where you are on teams and dress one people up in a toilet paper wedding dress. Then the Bride was going to pick her favorite. But we didn't have enough time so we didn't do this one. That was okay though because I'm not sure people really like this game. Plus its not like I wasted any supplies because I planned ahead and did not buy the super cheap toilet paper. Now I'm stocked fora few months.

The game we did do was a how well do you know the bride/how well does the bride know the groom game. This game went well other than two small issues, only one of which was my fault. You can find free printables for this type of game all over the internet but because I like to reinvent the wheel, I made my own list. Basically the questions are things like 'what are the names of the Bride's cats' and 'how many kids does the Bride want' and 'what elementary school did the Bride go to.'

Once I had my list, I modified it a little and printed a copy for the Groom to fill out. Then at the shower, the Bride had to guess what the Groom had answered. Small issue number 1. I may or may not have waited until the night before the shower and handed the Groom the list of questions at a tailgate for the Royals-Cardinals game. So by the end of the night when he got home and started answering the questions, he may have had one or two drinks. Which may have put the Bride at a slight disadvantage because she was guessing what Sober Groom would have said. Whoops.

For the other half of the game, I handed out lists of questions to everyone at the shower including the Bride. Then once everyone had written down their answers, the Bride said what she answered and you got a point if you got it right. SLight issue number two was I think the Mother of the Bride got a little upset that she didn't know all of the answers. I tried to come up with a good mix of questions since we had guests who were the Bride's family, the Groom's family, friends from college, friends from church and other random people. The Bride is from St. Louis but lives in KC now so hasn't live at home with her parents for a while. Nothing I could have done probably to remedy the situation so I didn't stress about it too much.

For prizes for the game, I went to Trader Joe's and bought a lot of chocolate. It was cheap and almost everyone likes chocolate. And if you don't like chocolate, you know someone who does. Plus, I took the extra home for me and Alex to eat.

The last game wasn't really a game, but more like an activity. We did a Date Night Jar. I got a jar from Hobby Lobby and cut up slips of paper and had people write down ideas for dates. Some of them were funny and some were serious. Alex actually asked me to write down all of the ideas for him because he has a hard time planning dates. We actually held on to this and had it at the bachelorette party too because a lot of the girls at the bachelorette party didn't go to the shower. I stuck the instructions in a frame so people would know what to do. This was really great for downtime at both the shower and the bachelorette party.

Wedding Shower

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:37:00 +0000

One of my sorority sisters and dear friends got married last month and I was lucky enough to be one of her bridesmaids. The other bridesmaids were other sorority sisters and the maid of honor was the bride's childhood friend but we liked her so much we tried to convince her to move to Kansas City so we could hang out with her more often. Anyway, back at the end of June we threw a shower for the lovely bride. It was lots of fun and I thought I would share some pictures. I will come back and do specific posts about projects I was in charge of later

Food table (with the MOH in the background)

Drinks and more food

Bride to be playing a game in her seat of honor

Cutting the yummy cake

For anyone wondering about the logistics, I can share a little bit about how we planned everything. There were four bridesmaids plus the maid of honor. Like I said before, the bridesmaids (myself included) are all sorority sisters so we know each other well. The maid of honor lives in St. Louis and is a childhood friend of the bride. We talked with her about what help she needed and we decided what would work best for us would be for us all to plan the shower. We split it up so that three ladies were in charge of food and two ladies were in charge of decor/games (we thought that was the best way to split up the financial responsibilities). I was on team decor/games. Anyone who is looking for guidance on how to plan a shower, my best advice is just to start talking to the interested parties and figure out what everyone's expectations are. If you need help connecting with someone in the bridal party, ask the bride for help. Not that you should ask the bride to plan her own shower, but in our case, since we didn't know the MOH, we asked the bride to talk to her to make sure the MOH knew that we were here to help her with whatever and that we didn't want to step on her toes if she had it covered. It ended up working really well and the shower was great. I will be back soon to share some of the decorations and games I was in charge of.

27 Things To Do Before I'm 27

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:34:00 +0000

I've kind of been wandering lately. For the first time in my life, I'm not in a place where I am working on X which will lead me to the next step Y with an ultimate goal of Z. I am so not used to this much free time. Once upon a time I made a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days (a Day Zero list if you will). But my life is way different now than it was then. Plus 1001 days is a long time. But I liked the idea, so I came up with 27 things to do before I turn 27. My birthday is at the end of February, so I have a little over six months to get it done. So without further ado, here is the list:

1. Learn how to use my camera on manual settings
2. Lose 30 lbs
3. Finish an unfinished project
4. Read A Confident Heart
5. Read 15 books
6. Watch 15 movies
7. Sell something on Etsy
8. Get rid of 100 things
9. Reach 100 blog posts on this blog
10. Write a living will/health care directive
11. Unplug for a weekend
12. Go on 10 special dates with Alex
13. Complete Couch to 5K program
14. Do/make 10 Pinterest pins
15. Make a donation
16. Update/fill all picture frames throughout the house
17. Do something spontaneous
18. Carve pumpkins or make a snowman
19. Make list of 100 things that make me happy
20. Finish captioning my JYA photo albums
21. Get off Facebook for a week
22. Go to the zoo
23. Finish reading/listening to the Bible
24. Don't buy anything online for a month
25. Try something new
26. Hand make 1/2 of our Christmas gifts
27. Make a list of 28 things to do before I turn 28

Gallery Wall Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:53:00 +0000

I did this a little out of order, but I wanted to share with you all some gallery wall inspiration. Next week I will show you a couple of other places I have used this concept in my house, but for now, here’s what other brilliant people came up with

Source: marthastewart.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I love the boldness of this one. I think it could be really striking in a hallway to lead your eye down the hall.

Source: ana-white.com via Courtney on Pinterest

The ledges are way cool because you could change stuff up all the time (my favorite pastime) without messing your walls up.

Source: smallchichome.com via Courtney on Pinterest

The colors on this one are super cute. A little random for what I usually do but I also like the shapes. I found frames like these at Hobby Lobby the other day.

Source: tatertotsandjello.com via Courtney on Pinterest

This one has the fun shapes but is more uniform in color, which is a little more of my style.

Source: thehouseofsmiths.com via Courtney on Pinterest

This one is so super cute!

Hallway Mini Gallery Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:08:00 +0000

So I am more or less obsessed with decorating with picture frames. I really love to be surrounded by my family and friends. I tend to buy frames when they are on clearance and they match one of my color schemes. Then I change color schemes and need to frames and have extras. Such is the case when we moved and I moved towards a more masculine palette for our bedroom. Before we were rocking a jewel-tone/black and white damask theme. Anyways, I had a lot of extra frames and a blank wall in the hallway. Any guesses on where this one is going?

The hallway is really narrow so its is pretty much impossible to get a straight on shot. This wall leads to our bedroom and opposite it is the utility closet (where the furnace and vacuum live).

The picture frames also help the thermostat blend in. I have since added some silver frames which look nice with the black and purple.

Here it is when looking from the doorway to the living room into our bedroom. I think I want to add a few more that are art instead of pictures, but who knows when I will get around to that. The Keep Calm and Carry One is vinyl on glass so I can switch out the paper whenever I want (if I get tired of yellow). The Always & Forever frame is similar, but the ampersand is etched and the words are vinyl. All of the frames are attached with 3M Velcro Command Strips so I can move them around easily without messing up the wall.00

Laundry Room

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:40:00 +0000

I finally got my photo software put back on my computer so I was able to upload pictures of our laundry room. It isn’t much and certainly isn’t super fancy, but it does the job and after three years of living in an apartment sans washer/dryer hook-ups, it might just be my favorite room in the house. It also happens to be super hard to photograph.

The laundry room is off of the kitchen and the door on the right leads to the garage. We just got the washer and dryer a month or so ago and they work amazing. Turns our Alex and I can’t make decisions like where to go to dinner to save our lives but when it comes to big things like appliances, it only takes us a few minutes. The laundry room is really more like a big closet, but that’s okay. This is what you see when you look in from the kitchen.

This is the wall above the washer and dryer. The shelf and bar were in the room when we moved in. The baskets are all from the Dollar Tree, but they haven’t had them the last few times I’ve been in. The top frame just has white paper behind the glass so it can be used like a dry erase board. The bottom frame has metal in it so it is magnetic. The baskets up on the shelf have various things in it—floor cleaning stuff, extra attachments for the vacuum, our iron, miscellaneous random stuff (dog treats, shoe water proofing spay, a roll of shrink wrap we used when we moved, etc.), and trash bags.

The two smaller baskets hang from the rods with rings that I used in law school to hold my notecards together. One holds our Tide Pods and he other has stain remover, Febreeze and other stuff like that. The phone booth is a charging station that my parents got me for my birthday a couple of years ago. It doesn’t work real well as a charging station, but it is really super cute. Other than that, we are trying not to keep much stuff on the washer and dryer to keep them from becoming magnets for clutter.

On the end by the dyer hangs our broom and Swiffer and dustpans. The London canvas came from Target and the Keep Calm and Carry On canvas I made—I painted the canvas and applied vinyl I ordered online using a Groupon. The vinyl isn’t really straight which bummed me out a little bit, but it is what it is. I probably should have just bought a poster instead of vinyl but the DYI bug bit me and I couldn’t help myself.

The other wall is pretty blank. I put a random dry erase board over there for notes and we keep our trash can there because it is too big to fit under the sink. There is a rack of hooks on the garage door that I use to hang stuff that doesn’t got in the dryer. (Please ignore the clutter on the kitchen counter, I have already cleaned it up.

So there you have it. It’s not too much but it is functional and in my opinion, cut. Not sure which room I will share next and I’ve got a busy week anyway so you’ll have to wait a bit for the next installment of the house tour.

Dream Laundry Room

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:11:00 +0000

After living for almost four years without my own personal laundry facilities, Alex and I finally bought a washer and dryer not too long ago. The apartment we lived in prior to this house didn't have hookups so we either did laundry in the basement if we had quarters or at our parents' houses. Once we moved we had hookups but we didn't get around to making the purchase for a while. Finally Alex got sick of having to go to the laundromat when we got behind so he decided we should go shopping. It took us all of about 15 minutes to pick some out. I will share our laundry room with you soon but for now, here is some laundry room eye candy.

Source: centsationalgirl.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: camerasandchaos.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: yourhomeonlybetter.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I like how much storage this one has between the two shelves and that hangy down shelf.

Source: houzz.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am not sure I can justify a TV in the laundry room. But I do like the shelf that spans the top of the front loaders.

Source: blog.familybringsjoy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I love these bins. But instead of doing one per person, I would probably use them more for storage. It would be nice to just take Alex's softball clothes from the dryer into a bin so that they are where they need to be for the next game.

Source: etsy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

So cute!

Source: closetworld.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am intrigued with the idea of stacking them.

As soon as I get my photo software loaded back onto my computer, I will share some pictures of our laundry room now. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Yay!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:33:00 +0000

Good news is that my recovery disks came in the mail today and my computer seems to be as good as new. And by new I mean there is nothing on my hard drive. However, it really could be worse. I rarely delete things off memory cards so I should be able to recover a lot of my pictures. Also I recently found my iPod that I thought had drowned and plugged it in to see what would happen. Turns out it works again (just needed to dry out for a couple of years), so I haven't lost any music I don't think. I'm on the lookout now for a good online photo storage website so if you have any recommendations, send them my way.

Hopefully I will be back soon with an actual post but I have to get a bridesmaid dress fitted tomorrow and have a bunch of work to do for my friend's bridal shower this weekend.