For a while now, I have been eyeing iPhone cases in search of something fun to hold the device that I hold so frequently. After always passing on this case or that case thinking I would come across something better, I ended up back to basics – Jcrew, Madewell, Rifle Paper Co, etc.
And after all that research, it came down to an impulse buy – right place, right time, right price. Which one did I choose…?
Anchors away!
Remember when I told you I had found an old pair of Keds in my closet? I was deciding whether to stick with the white or try a DIY project to add some pizzazz. If you’re hoping for a DIY post, I hate to disappoint, because I am loving the plain old white! I can’t believe these are from high school. I guess that’s what happens when you preserve your shoes in a box for 10 years.
Now I find myself creating outfits just to wear my Keds. I highly recommend it!
p.s. – These pictures were taken at my in-laws’ house in the country. Beautiful.
The father’s day card that I mailed to my dad this year read something like, “Thank you Dad for all of the things that you’ve taught me…especially that potty training thing. That has really come in handy.” I thought it was a great card! While I appreciate being potty-trained, I like to think that I’ve learned much more than that from my dad. Since I won’t be able to see my dad today, I want to send a thank you to him for all that be has taught me.
Happy Father’s Day Dad and Happy Father’s Day to all the influential dads in my life, especially my step-dad Bob for everything he does for me and my sister, treating us like his own kids, my fathers-in-law Dick and Bruce and my grandfather-in-law Dick Sr. I love you all!
So far, owning a home has not been as easy as I would have thought. Once we came down off of our initial excitement, we were faced with all of the projects we wanted to tackle along with an invisible and unrealistic timeline. We were finishing each day having crossed nothing of significance off our list and we would argue. If you know us at all, you know that we rarely argue! All of this started to lead to questions about whether we had made the right decision in buying a house at all. It wasn’t about this particular house. We were discussing whether home ownership was right for us. See, we were used to coming home after work and doing what we wanted with our evenings, even if that was more work, we could choose – reading, yoga, knitting, going out with friends, etc. Now we were coming home and mowing the grass, researching how to patch holes, calling AC repairmen, etc. and we were missing the freedom of our apartment days!
This continued for a couple of weeks until we decided enough was enough and it was time to just tackle a hole in our living room wall. Our living room, while it had all of our furniture in it and was the room where we spent most of our time, just did not feel like home. Partly because of the holes in the wall, partly because the colors were not our taste, but mostly because it was a constant reminder of what we had not accomplished! So we decided to just go for it. Phil watched YouTube videos, we bought materials, and bought more materials, and finally one evening we figured it out. The dry-wall fit, the spackle dried and we felt infinitely better.
It was like we just needed that one small win to push us over what felt like the top of a mountain. Now we are motivated and excited to tackle the next hole. And who knows what patching holes will lead to – painting, demoing, and more. With YouTube at our fingertips and our experienced family on the phone, we can do whatever we want to. But for now, I think I’ll relax!
In last month’s issue of Real Simple, there was an article titled “5 Types of Friends Everyone Should Have” that got me thinking about friendships and my close friends. Now I realize that it is just a magazine article and not the end all be all when it comes to friendship advice, but I found myself thinking about which one of my friends would fall into which friendship type. And then I wondered what type of friend I am. I think I am pretty sure which “type” comes most naturally to me, but I’m curious to know what you think! What type am I to you?
I think it’s pretty easy to guess that I’m not your comic relief or your risk taker. I can challenge, but it’s not what comes naturally to me. I think I am a loyalist who moonlights as a life coach. Keeping up with friends, through good and bad times, being loyal, that comes easily to me. But in the last couple of years, as I’ve begun to know myself better, and actually, because of this blog, I’ve found myself enjoying the life coach role of encouraging and inspiring friends to set goals and continue to grow. Hopefully someone out there thought of me when they read that type.
And in terms of my friends, I have some who are several “types” to me and then there is a type or two that I think I am missing in my friends. Is that the end of the world? Of course not, I have great friends and this is just an article. But would having a comic relief, for example, make things a bit more fun? Sure. Though judging by the looks of these photos, maybe I’m not missing that at all!
So what about you – what type of friend are you? Do you think it’s important to have friends that span all 5 friend-types? Should we purposefully seek out friends to fill the types that we are missing?
We are in the midst of painting — lots of painting — and because of all the wall-preparation, room-rearranging and furniture-covering that comes with painting, our living room is no longer a living room. Currently, it only contains a couch covered by a drop-cloth in the middle of the room. Which means, when we want to sit and relax in the evening (when we’re not painting of course) we have two options – the kitchen bar stools or the bed. But when I am sitting and relaxing, I do enjoy the occasional time in front of the tube watching The Voice, Modern Family or our trusty go-to-channel PBS. So with only two choices for relaxing and TV-watching, we decided on the bed and temporarily relocated our TV there. Boy is it strange.
I have never had a TV in my bedroom, except when I lived in a studio where the entire apartment was my bedroom, and it’s a good thing because this is pretty much me. Whether it’s a suspenseful show, a sitcom, or just the news, I. Can’t. Stop. Watching. At first I thought it would be fun, maybe feel like a mini-vacation since hotel rooms are the only other place where I watch TV from bed, but instead, I think it’s been disrupting my sleep! My bedroom has become my living space instead of my sleeping space and I am staying up too late, falling asleep with the TV on, and waking up in the early hours to turn the tv off. Not good.
I guess I like my bedroom to be a little old-fashioned – containing a bed, a dresser and a nightstand – a simple and peaceful space focused on sleep. What about you? Do you have a TV in the bedroom? How do you make sure that it doesn’t disrupt your sleep?
When we put together our registry a little over two years ago, Phil was pretty adamant about doing things a little differently. He wanted to support companies that are making products in the USA and reflect that in our registry. I admit that at first I was a little hesitant. It seemed like a lot of extra work to research and sort out logistics, but he eventually talked me into it and we began our work. And it was work. We learned that it takes a lot of time and research to find out where something is actually made, and there were items that we wanted and we just couldn’t find them made in the usa. So when we couldn’t find it made in the usa, we opted for items that were not made in china.
I thought I would share a few of our favorites in case it can help you in adding items to your own registry, buying gifts for your next wedding, or just upgrading to something made in the usa.
Fiestaware | Dexter | All-Clad | Vitamix | Nordic Ware
The whole process was a learning experience, and an eye-opening one at that. It’s changed our perspective on what we buy because we’ve found that the made in the usa items that we have are the ones that we love and use the most and they are also the ones that will last us much longer than anything made in china.
Note: We used Gift Registry 360 for all of the items that weren’t readily available at your typical registry stores (Macy’s, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc.).
