r&s / April 2013

she got really into plants
he worked 27 straight days
they can't wait to visit D.C.
she cooked more food than ever
he ate really well
they started running again
she cried over the Boston bombing
he distracted himself with Braves baseball
they had long talks about humanity
she built a patio table
he LOVES the patio table
they ate out there a few perfect evenings
they got the last weekend of this month together
she didn't ask him to do a single project
he appreciated that
they watched seven episodes of The Wire
she can't believe how great marriage is
he is happy when she packs his lunches
they are excited for many more months

Houseplants Make Me Happy

 

Well, remember this living room update... totally not even the same room anymore. I can't stop rearranging this room and I love changing things up.

Rob has been wanting houseplants since January and I've been putting it off. I was worried about the dogs eating them and getting sick, and I worried I would just kill them. We also had to budget for them, because I wanted to get larger plants from the start and pretty pots.

So Saturday I found myself at Home Depot for the 3rd weekend in a row, the ladies now know me, and I stumbled onto these two plants. The left is called a Z Plant, it is very toxic to pets, but it grows straight up so if you put it up high you're good. The right one is actually a white bird of paradise. I secretly home it never blooms, I just like the leaves. The paradise plant will probably get close to ceiling height if we let it. We spent $38 on two plants, not too bad.

Then I wandered over to this new store called Bargain Hunt. They had just opened and had huge ceramic pots for $10 and $15. I almost took some woman out getting the two pots I wanted. At Home Depot I had seen the exact same pots for $35 and $50. It was too good to be true really.

Once I got them home I played around with placement. I had spent the evening with my mom and she let me take some old family pieces back over to our house. They worked perfectly and really tie in the plants and textiles. I'm over the moon with how the living room looks now. It's made me excited to bring more plants into the house, possibly in the bedroom hanging.

**Home Depot will replace any plant that dies within one year, no questions asked. Just save your receipt or the card you used to purchase it with**

The Married Life // 3 Months

Feels like a lot longer, but seems like a drop in the bucket. Rob and I have been rocking the Married Life, we've settled into our routine and I'm very happy with it.

What marriage looks like for us.
5:45AM Rob's alarm clock goes off. Sometimes I wake up, sometimes I don't. Either way I don't get out of bed until later. He makes his coffee, reads and gets dressed for work.

6:50AM Rob wakes me up to say goodbye. I'm usually groggy and totally incoherent. Other days I get up and see him to the door.

7:30AM I'm out of bed and headed to either work or a gym class. If I don't have something to get me out of bed I'll stay in it till noon.

Five days a week Rob works a day job 8-4. YUCK. And then he also flies helicopters for the National Guard. Some months it's only a few days. This month it's been about 10 days.

Three days a week I nanny. On those days I try and clean the kitchen before I leave and run the vacuum. Figure out what I will need to cook for dinner when I get off work. Real fun stuff.

Two days a week I'm totally free. I go to a gym class and then work from home or run errands. I work out in the yard, catch up on Project Life. Grocery shop. Do a million loads of laundry. Bathe dogs. Stuff that keeps the house functioning but fun things as well.

5:00PM Rob sometimes beats me home, but not lately. I feed the dogs and let them out. Start preparing dinner for the night. Once Rob gets home he jumps in and helps.

7:00PM Dinner is usually over, we've packed his lunch for the next day, cleaned up the kitchen and started the dishwasher. Rob heads towards the shower. I usually MAKE myself fold laundry while he is in the shower.

7:30PM These two partiers are in bed, PJS and all.We use to watch two episodes of something on Netflix, but I get bored with TV after awhile. We've watched movies some nights. But lately Rob reads or watches some football montage about the SEC, I catch up on blogs and write blog posts. Sometimes 'window shop' online. Oh we pay bills from bed too.

Between 8:30 - 10PM Rob is asleep. I'm more in the 9:30-11:30 range. I always wake him up to say goodnight though. Cause we are adorable like that.

May seem like a dull life, but oh it is full of some laughs, great talks and time with my favorite person. Some weeks we take a date night or head off to hear a band. Or sit out on the porch listening to music. It's the breaks in the routine that make those moments stand out. I can't really remember how I spent my time before Rob.

And may there be many many many more drops in the bucket.

messing around // flowers

Today as I was cleaning and taking product photos I snapped some photos of this little flower vase. I had cut some flowers from the yard, some are actually weeds, and threw them together. They made me so happy and didn't cost a dime. When I was going through the photos I thought about making them into tags for my shop items, I'm very tired of the white. Who knows, but I had fun messing around.

xoxo

the little things.

Lately it's been the little things. Making it to an early gym class, spending an hour or two working in the yard, or reorganizing our closet. We've been making an effort to stay home as we prepare for our summer travels. We don't owe any money to anyone and we have promised to keep it that way (well maybe until we buy a home). I also don't want to touch my savings, and so we've been trying to find ways to keep ourselves entertained. Some days it's hard. I don't want to cook or Lululemon is having a sale, but usually I can rein it in and keep my eyes on the prize.

Here is what we have planned for the summer, travel wise:

Memoria Day we are driving to D.C. to visit our very amazing friend Andrew. He started as Rob's childhood friend, but I claim him now as well. He is good people. I'm so excited because I've never been to D.C. We saved half of Rob's tax refund for the trip and I'm 100% that we won't spend over that.

August 8th-11th we are flying to Vancouver B.C. for the 2nd Annual Lululemon Half Marathon. We signed up the day tickets went on sale, which was a pretty penny, but you get a race, free clothes and an epic waterfront concert. Also, time with my man. I spent ALL of my tax refund on our plane tickets and Rob covered the race fees. I'm currently saving all my shop revenue for spending money and shopping. I got to use my hotel points on our hotel which was pretty awesome.

September we are hoping to make it to Memphis for my 25th birthday. I went when I was 9 and it's where I feel in love the jazz and the saxophone. It's something I want to share with Rob because the music scene there is incredible. Hoping to use hotel points as well and not break the bank on our Canada adventure.

All in all when I write out what we have planned, it doesn't matter that we haven't eaten out as much or bought new clothes. The memories we will have are going to be much more important. As my good friend James says, 'You never see a U-Haul following a hearse' 

So much to look forward to and it's helping me focus on all the time we have together and less about the time we will have apart.

A Living Room Tour

Finally able to give you all a living room tour, still in progress but I'm loving this space. So welcome to our living room...

Walls // Before it was a blue color and we painted it white one of the first weekends after we moved it. It feels so much bigger now. The paint color is Clear Moon by Behr.

Couch // For awhile we had a different couch, a floral one Rob's mom generously let us have. In March, we made the trip to Ikea to get the EKTORP sofa in white, we decided on this after months of research. Apparently, it holds up and is easy to wash, I will report back.

Pillows // Black and White is from Ikea, the two square burlaps I found at Southeastern Salvage for $10 a piece and my mom monogrammed them for us, the rectangle burlap my mom made and monogrammed with our wedding date for Christmas.

Art // The leaf print is unknown (anyone have a link) and the star we picked up from a garage sale.

Chairs // The plaid chair was from my grandparents old home, we have the matching one in the study. I have plans to have them covered in a white denim, hopefully that happens soon. The black chair was given to me by a friend who was closing a furniture store. I'm planning to recover the the seat and possibly painting the frame a neon shade.

Rug // I bought the 8' x 10' rug off overstock.com, cannot say enough good things about that website. I had a coupon code for 40% off and snagged this and another large rug for $120 each.

Left Bookshelf // Holds our books and other knick knacks. I wish I could paint the inside of these, but I don't want to ruin the beautiful wood for the next renters. I might try using some fabric or paper inserts.

Mantle // Great story, Rob's grandfather cut all of the stone seen here and built the fireplace himself (he also designed and built the home) The mirror is the original that hung in the home when they lived here.  The picture frames were all wedding gifts and the orchids all gifts from Rob (they are my favorite flower). The pencil cactus seen in two different pots was started when I was 8yrs old from a piece about an inch long, I'm pretty proud of that plant. It needs a bigger pot as we speak. Tall white vase is by Kate Spade (wedding gift) you can find one at Macy's.

Right Bookshelf // This is the one you view right when you walk in the front door. I've tried to dress it up with things we already owned or were gifted. I spray painted all those vases to look like milk glass, print by Elise Joy when she was selling prints, 'E' was from TJ Maxx for $5.

Accents // Coffee table was also from Rob's mother, the tray was handmade by our friend as a wedding gift, the mercury glass candle holder is from a local store called At Home, and the basket is from Pottery Barn (both wedding gifts)

And that's our living room. We've made it our own thanks to wedding gifts and a few investments. I've rearranged about 4 times since we moved in, who knows if this arrangement will last. I still need to end tables for our gorgeous new lamps from Pottery Barn (wedding gifts) and I'd also love to add some larger plants into the room. Possibly a sofa table behind the sofa, as inspired by this.

I'll leave you with some before photos so you can see where it all started and evolved. Ask any questions or if you have any ideas let me know :)

Present // another picture-less post

Thursdays are my recharge days. It's the start of my weekend and I don't work again till Monday. It's the day I have to accomplish so much around the house like cleaning and laundry, working on the shop, answering e-mails, fitting in a workout. Today is different. Today I let myself sleep in a bit, I dragged myself to the gym with no intentions of killing myself. Somewhere in the middle of my workout I realized I'm letting the future bring me down. All I'm focused on is what's next, Rob leaving for a year, things I need to get done, etc. I need to slowly let things go, that planning and stressing just lead to plans not working out and disappointment.

So today on the elliptical I promised myself to be more present. To not worry about all the things in the future I cannot change, because He has a plan for me and there is nothing I can do to change it. I know that if I let go everything will work out and I will get through it all. NO, we will get through it all.  For know I'm just going to enjoy the little things like Target trips, good workouts and husband who tells me everyday how happy he is with me.

April Fool's Day

April Fool's Day is just another day to me. I've never pulled a prank, I've never been pranked. It's just a day that happens every year and I hear about what happens to other people. When I married Rob I found out that his childhood experience with April Fool's day was MUCH different. His parents really go all out, I'll share some examples.

- They were in the Bahamas, Rob was 8 and his sister Amelia was 12. They talked the local police into arresting the kids and putting them in a holding cell....

- Another Bahamas trip, they took the kids out to the beach and told them a giant tidal wave was coming and that they would all probably die. Rob says he was crying and all the kids were freaking out. I think he was younger than 8 at this point.

- The best one happened to Rob's sister Amelia in college. Their dad had flown a group of girls down to the islands and on the flight back he pretending to make an emergency landing in a field. Once on the group he started yelling the plane was on fire and to run for their lives... needless to say I will never be flying with him near April 1st. ALSO, how those girls ever got back on the plane to finish the trip is a mystery to me.

So as a new member to this family, the best thing I can do is appreciate how boring my April first's have been and hope they stay that way. I can't do these stories justice via a blog post, but just know that they were all very traumatic. To the point where Rob was scared to have Easter lunch with his family yesterday...

Kudos to Rob and Amelia for surviving so many April's and may this one be uneventful.