an excuse

i have been majorly slacking on posts lately, even the super-easy-to-put-together "weekends were made for..." posts.

this is totally an excuse, but it's a legitimate one - i've been slacking because things have been a little hectic lately with buying and selling a house. not only is most of my weekday free time spent going to super fun 4 hour home inspections or setting up appointments, but my weekends are spent doing totally adult things like pressure washing our current house, meeting craigslisters to buy a ton of stuff from us or spackling & painting.

party!!! (nothing will make you feel more like an adult quite like passing up a sunday funday to plant flowers and meet with realtors, am i right??)

please note: i'm not trying to complain here. i'm beyond excited and i realize that these things take time & effort and am more than willing to lose a few weeks and weekends if it means our house sells quickly and that our move-in is painless.

so i promise to come back later this week with a legitimate post that actually has to do with my 30before30 list!

until then, a reminder for myself:

raising the bar

since we are a mere three weeks from moving in to our new home (eep!), we've been selling things like crazy on craigslist that will no longer fit the style we're going for, which means our house is getting emptier and emptier. it's kind of a nice feeling to de-clutter and purge a little bit, but...we're not left with very much!

this means that i've been window shopping and trying to picture what our new style will be in the new place.

one of the things that the husband & i both love equally is the wet bar, you can see it a little bit on the left side in the picture below.

we don't have a designated place for our liquor or barware in our current home, which is a bit inconvenient since we love to entertain. so we've both been daydreaming of making this little nook look just perfect. here are some images that i've loved lately.





1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7



news!!!!!

yes, friends. the time has come. i can finally, finally start working on one of my very favorite goals from my 30before30 list. the one that seemed so unattainable just a few months ago:

#13 - decorate our "forever" home to reflect both my husband & i perfectly.

this past saturday, we put in an offer on a home that we were completely swooning over. a home that we freely called our "forever" home from the second we walked in. we both pretended that we'd be okay with it if for some reason something fell through and the house didn't become ours, but...we both knew we were lying. i would've hidden in a corner and done the silent cry for at least 30 minutes every day for the rest of my life. it's kind of like trying on wedding dresses - when you know you've found the one, you know. we weren't even in the house for 15 minutes with our friend/realtor before we were all saying things like, "this is where we'll set up bocce ball!" or, "kids could be making cookies or working on projects here while we're cooking!" - that one was said by my husband. (insert googly eyes here)

so, yes. on sunday night the offer got accepted and we are beyond elated and paperwork has been signed & sent, and then signed some more, and then some more on top of that & it seems never ending. but that is completely fine with us, because we can now do things like start shopping for a grey sectional, taking measurements for rugs and art, and i finally have an excuse to buy the rest of the penguin classics that i'm missing. (you've seen those, yes? if not, go take a peek. i promsie you'll want them immediately.)
we fully expected to have to do some sort of renovation work when we started house hunting, but the stars aligned in our favor and somehow the owner of this home did everything we would do, without us having to actually deal with the difficult parts of renovations. i knew i believed in karma for a reason!

here are a few pictures of the house...there will be lots more to come when we do finally move in (closing date is set for valentine's day as of now...tres romantic) - so please forgive me if i go a little overboard these next few weeks with house posts...i'm a little overwhelmed with excitement!

sunday night supper part deux

last month i hosted my first sunday night supper, as a way to start working on goal #14 from my 30before30 list (to start a sunday night supper tradition). 

i mentioned before that ideally, i'd like to have different lady friends host a sunday supper and start a rotation. whether it's monthly, every other month, or whenever it may be - it just needs to become a somewhat regular occurrence! 

part of the reason for this is that i tend to have girlfriends that are completely separated from one another. meaning that i've met them all in different places and they don't really know each other because we typically hang out one on one. and i absolutely love when a handful of friends come together and they become friends - making sense? ya know what i mean?

anyway - that's where the want for this tradition came from. and lesley was kind enough to host the second ever sunday night supper around these parts. it happened to coincide with the season premiere of girls, which couldn't have been better timing. 

weekends were made for...

it was cold enough this weekend for me to justify wearing a hat out to a dinner date on friday! not just cold for texas, but actually cold. 

the rest of the weekend, there were delicious bloody marys at brunch, hangin' with some of my favorite kitties (which meant getting that cute key from their mom), appreciating homemade gifts from far-off friends (that texas mug leads to a picture of ohio, where she is), and that last picture? that would be me purging. 

does anyone else watch house hunters renovations on hgtv? well, i do. i'd go so far as to say that i'm a teeny bit obsessed with it. and this morning while the husband & i were watching it, i mentioned how much i loathe packing. i mean, i despise it. and since we'll be moving sometime in the next several months, i figure i might as well start clearing things out now so that i'll have less work to do when the time comes. so i'm donating or selling things that i haven't worn in months and that i know i feel okay parting with. i even had a box full of purses/bags that i brought when i moved in with tucker (two and a half years ago!) and haven't opened since. i think it's fair to say i won't be missing those? it feels sooo good to see how nice & organized my closet can actually be...so here's to keeping it that way.

first sunday night supper

i hosted my first sunday night supper a few nights ago (well, on sunday. obviously) - so that means that i've gotten started on goal #14 on my 30before30 list!

i decided to make a really simple dinner since the point of sunday night supper, in my eyes at least, is to have a lot of conversation over several glasses of wine and not to have to leave your guests while you're working the stove or worrying about burning something. so my trusty crock pot took care of some creamy chicken, the oven took care of the easiest roasted red potatoes with bacon and parmesan, and i made dressing for the salad hours before anyone was over. i had the full intention of making honey almond ice cream, and then...i didn't. (ladies - i promise this will be at the next sunday night supper that i host! and i also promise i'll take more pictures, i was just too excited at this one and got distracted.)

we also assigned hostesses for the next several suppers - january, february, march and april are already taken care of, and then it comes back to me! i'm completely happy that this technically means a tradition has been started...right? i'm definitely not crossing this off my list until we're at least 6 months in, because that's when i'll really feel like it's fair.

do you ever host monthly (or bi-monthly or quarterly??) dates with your lady friends? if not, i'd say it's a good time to start.