Meet Donald Sutherland the dog. Last night we decided to give fostering another go (our second time ever), so we went to the PSPCA in search of “Buster,” who we saw listed on their website as being shy, old and blind. After waiting two long hours, we finally met this little wiry haired guy, who has the body of a Dachshund and the combover-esque hair of a terrier.

We fell in love and scooped him up and now he and Betty White are in cahoots (and by “cahoots” I mean he sniffs her and she  runs away and escapes to higher ground). We’ll see how well he and Betty end up getting along before I consider hiding him in my pocket and keeping him for good.

We’ve renamed him Donald Sutherland because we think the resemblance is pretty uncanny, but maybe you have to meet him to see it.

Likes: Rubbing his face on our shaggy rug. Romping around in the backyard. Artfully peeing without lifting his leg. Being mistaken for a member of the Sutherland family. Devouring Beggin’ Littles. Trying to get Betty White’s attention by playfully barking at her in a guttural tone.

Dislikes: Being returned to the shelter for “not being very playful” after just one day of readjusting to a new home. Not being tall and limber enough to jump on the couch. Being mislabeled as “blind” when he really has nuclear sclerosis (which in his case, doesn’t affect vision).

He isn’t doing a ton of smiling in these photos, but I’m sure that will change once he’s grown more comfortable here. We get attacked with tail wags and kisses whenever he’s not sleeping, so we think he’s pretty happy (even though we I dress him in a sweater sometimes).

I’m looking forward to sharing more about Donald Sutherland as we get to know him better. Do you think we picked an appropriate celebrity to name him after or would you have gone with a different long-haired gent?

We had been debating whether or not we should make an arbor, but I think we’ll be dying and tying ombre-style pieces of yellow fabric to the dogwood tree, along with hanging mason jar vases with flowers and candles. I really love these tissue paper-covered lanterns and we already have oversized yellow balloons from our barbecue that never happened, so those should look pretty (assuming we don’t get another Hurricane Irene).
I’ll be wearing the Orla Kiely dress below from BHLDN, which I managed to score half off with a little luck. The vintage heart earrings were a gift from Pete, as was the yellow felt headband from Giant Dwarf. I still have to figure out what type of shoes to wear, but I’m leaning toward something glittery like this pair from Steve Madden (Pete is a flats lover, so I have no complaints on that end!). For our flowers, we plan on blending succulents, billy balls and other wispy accents to bring our yellow and grey theme together.
We still have plenty of grey and white striped paper straws leftover from our barbecue, so those will also be put to good use. We just bottled our first official homebrew and plan on making a Berliner Weisse for our guests who are brave enough to taste our homemade hoppy goodness. We’re also going to explore canning this weekend, so we’ll attempt to make Ginger Peach Jam (get it? ginger? red-headed hubby to be?), so hopefully it will make the cut for some tasty favors. For our place settings, we’ll be combining mismatched vintage china, so I’m looking forward to having an excuse to go thrifting together—we started this weekend and had great success (I was even recognized by a cool gal who reads my blog!).
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m most looking to the yummy food (apart from getting to be Pete’s super lucky future Mrs., of course). Four words: Red velvet whoopie pies. Just sayin’. I’m looking forward to the entrees and stuff too, but for the most part, I just want to snarfle sorbet and lemonade while holding hands with the ginger.
My apologies if all of the wedding talk is completely boring, I just like sharing our ideas like a big goober.

*For those of you who are viewing this post on your mobile device, you can thank Pete for his fancy web developing skills since he just launched the responsive version of my site this weekend. I am very lucky to be able to reap the benefits of such a tech-savvy fiance, so thanks to Pete for the new version update.

Here’s a peek of what we were dealing with before, and below is a glimpse of what the bedroom looks now, with Artesian Well by Martha Stewart and a shit ton of paisley. We aren’t really paisley people (in this photo, Pete is obviously the ginger and I’m Cameron from Modern Family), but perhaps our future guests will be. I spray painted the previous owner’s headboard bright yellow and we’ll be adding other bright yellow accents to tie the room together. Right now it’s way too matchy-matchy, but I’m hoping we can tone it down if we bring in some more neutrals and nix the ginormous lamp for something more metallic (I wish we could find the darn receipt from Home Goods so we could return it!).

Betty White approves of the changes we made, but we still have a lot of work to do to make it homey (like artwork on the walls and thrifty decor).

Here’s a photo of the room when we moved in, complete with the previous owner’s canopy, curtains, VCR, and stained mattress.

We have to figure out what to do with the antiquated air conditioning unit, which has a nice family of very opinionated birds living in it. We’re thinking we’ll have to turn it into a small window…not sure what other choice we’ll have. The furniture we inherited from the previous owner is a frightening shade of yellowed white, so we have a lot of spray painting in our future once the weather warms up. The closet could also use some white paint since the sad, hollow wood doors seriously bum us out.

For those of you who have a good eye for detail, you’ll notice we haven’t touched the wood paneling in the hallway since it was half-primed when we moved in. I guess that’s next on our list. I’m not sure what to do about the ceiling tiles (how difficult is it to replace ceiling tiles?), but I did appreciate the break from having to paint the ceiling with several coats of white.

Betty White was being very contemplative when I shot this in the bedroom mirror like a total sneak. She thinks we overdid it with the matching and the paisley, but she has faith that we can make it look better with a little love.

Tackling our last wallpapered room was tiresome, but it’s satisfying to know we can pack away the wallpaper steamer—unless we get incredibly ambitious and remove the wallpaper in our closets (yes, our closets).

Is anyone else guilty of making a room too match-y?

I am completely flattered and would love for my readers (ahem, my mom and Pete’s mom) to vote for me here if you want to spread the love. The top 5 winners of each category (in my case, “people”) will be announced here on Monday, March 12th. The winners will remain listed on the site for a year and given the opportunity to add info about their business. Plus, the winners will also receive an official 2012 Happening List award from Bucks Happening, which sounds mysterious enough to make me want to pimp myself shamelessly.

So, without further ado…

Thanks again to Angela and Tina at Bucks Happening for the love…you guys are fantabulous (and I’m not just saying that to get your votes!).

Meet Maude, who I got six years ago during college…she was my top secret, on-campus mascot. Maude had a snuggle buddy named Ethel for four years, but unfortunately she passed away (sad face). Even though Ethel isn’t around anymore, Maude still tries her best to befriend a very terrified Betty White.

A clueless Betty White contemplates whether or not the wind will blow our roof off. *As a side note, I realize I should make the bed more often.

She had no idea Maude was pining for her from afar.

A sneaky Maude tip toes up toward Betty White’s brown feet.

(Still clueless.)

This is her “MOM WTF WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME MAUDE WAS RIGHT NEXT TO ME!” face.

This is her “seriously, this chinchilla needs to get a grip” face.

Not really sure what face this is, but I thought it was cute.

Um, they are totally besties.

Hopefully that’s enough chinchilla love to hold you guys over for a little bit. In case you may have forgotten, we have five pets (yes, we’re those people).

Cadbury is a major beyotch, but I still love her. I rescued her from the SPCA, where they told me she was a he. I also took her to a vet which confirmed she was in fact a he. I was concerned about why her testicles were invisible, but figured the vet knew better than me. Needless to say, I got a new vet when I found five baby bunnies on my kitchen floor. I thought Betty had pooped and that her turds were running across the floor because it was 6am and I was delirious.

I was told by several vets and a handful of message boards not to be surprised if none of the babies made it because Cadbury was incredibly aggressive with them, which meant I had to feed them on my own. One ended up passing away, but the others were healthy and given happy homes.

I kept the runt of the litter, Applesauce. He looks nothing like his mom and if he had a Match.com account, one of his “likes” would be running around his cage with a stuffed apple in his mouth. I heart him, even though he poops at an inconceivable rate.

Here’s Willie Nelson and his boyfriend Eeyore:

Sometimes Willie Nelson likes to do bad things to Eeyore, but I guess you could say he’s just hugging him really hard.

Thanks to Jenn for requesting more chinchilla stuff on the blog, I hope our freckle-eared chinchilla hit the spot! To everyone else out there, I’d love suggestions for topics you’d like me to cover on here! I’ll be sure to write posts covering the ideas my Twitter pals suggested (including a Betty White separation anxiety update and some photography tips).

Photo courtesy of Ruffled

Our fantabulous vendors will be attending tomorrow’s Lovesick Expo at World Cafe Live, an earth-friendly, guy-friendly, budget-friendly wedding event. If you’re engaged (or even if you’re not), consider swinging by between 11am-3pm to chat with some amazingly talented people (tickets are only $6.50 online).

First up is the first vendor we booked, Morrissey Photo, a husband and wife team who couldn’t be any cuter. We really love their artistic style and can’t wait to have them capture the day. They’re very laid back and totally up for our ideas, so we are smitten.

Photos courtesy of Morrissey Photo

For our caterer, we wanted to have as much locally grown, fresh food as possible, which is why we went with Joshua’s Catering, based right around the corner in Jenkintown. We were blown away by how much the owner, David, was on the same page as us from the very beginning. Pete had someone to ramble with about red worms and composting and I had someone to gush with about local cheeses and wanting to raise chickens. We’ve been throwing some menu ideas back and forth, and we can’t wait for our tasting.

Photos courtesy of Joshua’s Events

Our florist, Love ‘n Fresh Flowers, is a petite, sustainably managed, urban flower farm and floral design studio with locally grown flowers. We really wanted stunning, quirky flowers—from my bridal bouquet to his boutonniere—so we’ll be working with the owner, Jennie Love, to create some sweet floral accents.

Photos courtesy of Love ‘n Fresh Flowers

It was important to us to have a non-denominational officiant, which is why we were drawn to Journeys of the Heart since they’ll craft the ceremony based on our own style and personality. They work with couples to personalize the ceremony by sharing their individual story creatively and with a good sense of humor.

Photos courtesy of Journeys of the Heart

We selected Naila, one of their officiants, because we connected with her bio instantly (anyone who references “The Princess Bride” and uses the word “goober” in their officiant writeup is a-ok in my book).

Our only non-Lovesick vendor (but still equally as awesome) is Luke Cleary, our ceremony and cocktail musician. When we first started discussing wedding plans, we talked about how nice it would be to have a guitarist playing classic and contemporary songs in our own backyard. Luckily Luke is well versed in old-school numbers, but also knows a lot of our favorites like David Bowie—he even taught a group of students an entire Bowie concert at the School of Rock.

It’s been nice being able to plan everything together with Pete—I’m thrilled he is actually interested in things like boutonnieres and ceremony decor (gasp). He’s even gone a bit crazy on Pinterest lately, which is my favorite way to collect wedding inspiration. I’ll be sure to share some of our DIY ideas soon, we’re really excited to incorporate things like canning (ginger peach jam favors, yes please!) and home brewing. Fun times! Anyway, that’s our geeky wedding news, I’ll be back to posting photos of Betty White in no time, pinky swear.

Photo credit: The Nest Bed

The steam shower with subway and honeycomb tiles was my favorite, and the stained glass accents around the entire house were gorgeous.

Here’s a small glimpse into the room we passed through whenever we headed upstairs to our room. This is also where Tulo greeted us by running up to us with a magazine in his mouth in the morning.

Seriously, how cute is that face?

I loved all of the attention to detail at The Nest Bed. From the adorable napkins accessorizing the ah-mazing homemade breakfast and dinner to the artwork hanging on the walls, the B&B felt like home and was filled with warmth from the lovely owners, Marko and Sally. They even had some retro pinball machines in the basement (I finally found something I could beat Peter at), along with a ping pong and pool table. I want them to adopt me, please (sorry mom and dad).

Say hello to Tulo for us if you visit. He will steal your heart instantly.

Pete and I spent our New Year’s Eve night dining at a local cafe (chocolate cake noms!) and taking goober-y photos of each other, followed by watching awful infomercials in bed and falling asleep to The Big Bang Theory.

Since it was Pete’s birthday, I decided we should do something he enjoys, even if the mere thought terrified me. That’s what birthdays are for after all, right? Anyway, I volunteered to go skiing with him at Shawnee Mountain, even though I don’t have a single athletic bone in my body. Pete had gone skiing a couple of times before so I was fully prepared to get owned, which is certainly what happened.

Here’s a video of Pete going down the bunny slope…which didn’t seem very “bunny”-ish to me at the time…but now looking back at the video, I suppose it’s a pretty skimpy hill.

Alright, so let me preface this next one by saying that the video below was my last attempt going down the hill. My first attempt was mere seconds after Pete slammed my ski boots on me. As a side note, for those of you who have never worn ski boots before, imagine clomp-clomp-clomping around like a deranged Frankenstein while the pro skiers gasp at how much you lack grace in your many layers. I wore 2 pairs of tights, two pairs of thigh high socks, jeans, a thermal, a t-shirt, a hoodie, a snowsuit, a giant puffy coat, waterproof gloves, and a helmet (oh, and underwear). It almost reached the 50s that day. Needless to say, I was a sweaty mess and my glasses kept fogging up while I was attempting to learn how to ski.

Anyway, Pete sent us right on our way to the weird treadmill thing that takes people up to the top of the hill if they want to avoid the ski lift (yes, please). That alone was terrifying. Having to shimmy out onto the hill made my heart drop. Pete made it look easy since he had done it before. He told me to follow behind him, so I tried and tumbled instantly. Meanwhile, Pete couldn’t stop himself, so he went all the way down to the bottom of the hill as I struggled to get back on my feet without sliding down. This went on for about 10 minutes until I unsnapped my boots and slowly walked down the hill like a defeated goober, with 3-year-olds whizzing past me and laughing at my blatant failure. I decided I was done trying until we had our group lesson an hour later.

During the lesson, I learned how to stop (or “make pizza,” as our instructor called it) and turn. Despite the class, I still managed to ski straight down the hill at a rapid speed (rather than zig-zagging) during my first post-lesson attempt down the bunny slope. I tried my best to dodge fallen snowboarders while screaming “PIZZA!” and other vulgarities not worth mentioning. Needless to say, I fell flat on my face.

Like I said, this video was my last attempt before we left and I managed to not fall (although you’ll see I came very close several times). Note the little child skiing past me effortlessly as I celebrate my victory. So sad. By the end of the day, my body hated me and I was incredibly sore, but at least I can say I tried something new and had fun doing it (despite the look of pure terror on my face).

What did you guys do to celebrate the New Year festivities?

My two major crushes sum up my thoughts so well. Pete and I are going to be exploring a few “firsts” this New Year’s, so I’ll just leave that open-ended and vague until I post a recap early next week.

What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

I know how much you love those “year in review” posts, so I thought it might be nice to highlight some of my favorite “before and after” projects we tackled together around the house in 2011. Can’t wait to see what we’ll be saying this time next year about our DIY accomplishments. Also can’t wait to be your Mrs. (Just sayin’.)

Let’s start with the outside, where two huge trees and endless hedges were blocking the view of our house, making us drive past it nearly every time (not that I don’t still do that). I think it looks a lot prettier now that you can actually see our front yard, where we hope to have raised beds once Spring rolls around.

Then there’s this situation, which I still have to resolve by laying my bricks straighter since I was rushing (Pete did a good job with his).

Tada! The brick paths looking a lot less sad…

Our sunroom was looking a little unfortunate when we first moved in, since we used it mostly to store lawn equipment and trash bags. I think it’s looking a lot cozier these days:

The Rocking chair revamp might be one of my favorite furniture makeovers from this past year…I love seeing it so bright and cheerful on our sunroom porch.

Here’s a look at our living room when had our first walk-through of the house. I instantly wanted to paint the fireplace white, and although most of my family thought I was crazy for it, I think it turned out pretty nice:

I still can’t believe how much painting we tackled the month before moving in, I wish I still had that kind of energy now.

The dining room used to be a bit of a downer, but with a little love from the wallpaper steamer and a fresh coat of paint, it’s looking better already:

Mmm, yellow.

Remember how smoke-stained our kitchen looked when we had our first walk-through? It looks so much better now without that bunny wallpaper, the new checkered floors we installed, and the white painted cabinets, all of which we did on our own within the first few months of moving in.

This one is lacking a “before” photo, but here’s a glimpse at the chalkboard door in our kitchen, which we try to always update with a weekly menu to avoid endless “what do YOU want for dinner?” ramblings.

This is what our office/critter room looked like when we first moved in. Eek. It’s still a work in progress, and I keep forgetting to take a photo since we’ve added a desk and organized things, but here’s a look at the lack of wallpaper and avocado paint job:

That’s Willie Nelson, our pet bunny. You can’t tell from this photo, but there’s also two other bunnies (Applesauce and Cadbury) and a chinchilla (Maude) nearby.

Here’s our bedroom when we first moved in…we even inherited these curtains from the previous owner. We haven’t taken a recent photo of our bedroom with our new curtains and artwork, but here’s a look at the freshly-painted walls:

Yay, mustard and grey accents galore!

The upstairs bathroom before & after is a pretty simple one as of right now, but it still makes me happy not to see those butterflies when I shower.

These are just some of my favorite before & after photos from the past six months of living in our first house together. I can’t wait to spruce up the yard to make it nice for our wedding and to see how we change the upstairs, since we’ve barely touched it. Anyway, I hope you have an amazing 25th birthday and consider myself the luckiest for being able to share it with you.

I tried to get him to take a normal photo with the two of us, but he insisted on making a crazy weird expression. I still love him, anyway.

I love these Vaillancourt Folk Art decorations…how fabulous is that super proud polar bear?

I could definitely get used to the delicious Mimosas, quiche and frittata yums every other year (we swap between our families for the holidays).

To give you a speedy summary of some of our gifts, I’d like to start with Betty White’s new chair pillow, which she is currently sleeping on.  Another favorite is the vintage map Pete got me for above our couch…I am a lucky lady.

Stocking stuffers are usually my favorite part, and I lucked out with new tights, slippers, and socks (is it sad I get excited over new socks?).

This fellow was a gift from my parents, who even drove the 2+ hours to drop it off the week before Christmas. When he’s not busy haunting the visions of passersby, he’s petting his dog, who I’ve named Norman (almost every stuffed animal in our house has this same name).

Pete got me this canning kit and book, and we can’t wait to get started on making jams and pickled foods. We’re going to can our own homemade jam for our wedding, so we’re looking forward to testing it out. I also got Pete some much-needed homebrewing supplies, so we’re also going to be making our own beer for the big day.

Pete’s parents gifted us with a handmade tray/bowl from Italy, where they vacationed this summer…it makes me excited for when we’ll honeymoon there in 2013. The flowers on the right are from the ginger for our anniversary…n’aw.

We also got this adorable welcome mat from Pete’s parents, which goes with our house’s bright & cheerful color scheme really well. I gave Pete these Northern & Southern Hemisphere prints by Brainstorm Print & Design, which he had been crushing on at the Holiday Art Star Craft Bazaar.

I treated myself to this vintage picture frame to showcase the boy’s proposal in our bedroom. It makes me smile lots.

That just about sums up our Christmas adventures and some of our presents…how was everyone else’s holiday?