weekends were made for...

 

 

this weekend was filled with the best weather ever, which i think was on purpose since today is earth day and all, & it's really easy to get in the mood to appreciate mother nature when she treats you so well.

we found my very first tomato in the new garden (see that little guy?). i've been told that he looks much larger in this picture than in person...he's actually only about 1 inch. but that doesn't take away from my excitement - i'm one miniature tomato closer to making salsa with ingredients from my own backyard!

the rest of the weekend was taken up by fancy meat + cheese plates with friends, visits from my sister in law and her husband (that's her with my husband in the last picture!) and making enough "mediterranean-style" quinoa to last us through the rest of the week.

and not pictured here is my obsession with frozen yogurt on sunday nights. i'm not sure what's happening lately but the thought of not having some on sunday after dinner kind of makes me weepy...i go as healthy as you can possibly go with froyo and get the delicious soy kind with no added sugar, but the m&m's i put in surely cancel out all the goodness. either way, i hope my new sunday tradition doesn't end any time soon & i hope you all enjoyed your weekend too - happy earth day!

weekends were made for...

the weekend was full of work from home days (which meant i cooked myself a healthy lunch + was able to meet up a friend for a neighborhood run! love those days), tending to plants & flowers (those two orchids were housewarming gifts from friends - still goin' strong), cooking this week's lunches for the husband & i (stuffed bell peppers), lots of competitive ladder ball games, finally adding champagne flutes to our wet bar (thanks to a crate & barrel gift card we've been holding on to) & gym time.

we also ordered some final things for the house & painted a few baskets and trinkets to match the new place...and i cannot wait to start putting together a house tour post. of course it won't quite look like jora's amazing california house tour, (if you haven't seen it, you'll want to. click here) but...i'm pretty sure that's impossible to duplicate.

i hope your weekend was just as good!

goal #15 - visit spain

friends, goal #15 from my 30before30 list is underway.

well, i mean it's not underway in the sense that i'm currently achieving it but...tickets have officially been booked.

the husband & i will be spending 13 days in europe at the end of september, and the last week will be spent in spain which i am thrilled about! yes, i do realize that september is like, eons away. but what can i say - we're planners.

i posted some images of spain a few months ago, but now that things are "official" and i can say things like, "i will be in spain in several months", i feel like the travel posts are more warranted, yes?

pssst. also travel related:

would you spend a day apart from your significant other while on a trip together? for those days when you want to go eat gelato and people-watch in the fancy part of town & he wants to, you know, do guy stuff? read more about that in this link.

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backyard goodness

it was almost exactly one year ago that the husband & i finished working on our backyard at our previous house and it's strange to think about the fact that we've moved on to fix up the backyard in our forever home. and by strange, i do of course mean wonderful.

we try to spend lots of time outside and love hosting parties so i'm itching to get started on creating an environment like we had before. except this time around, we have about 6 times the space to fill up - that can be good and bad.

we found our last backyard chandelier in warrenton last year but unfortunately had no luck finding one during this year's trip. so we've been watching craigslist for a spray paint-able gem & are dusting off our packed up lanterns and seat cushions.

these are some images that have been inspiring me to get some lights strung, a pergola built & some sangria in the backyard:

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weekends were made for...

this weekend, the husband & i went on our annual trip to warrenton, tx to walk miles & miles at their antique festival in hopes of finding one or two treasures. this time around, we found three! (more on those later)

we've gone to warrenton for the past three years (i think) with his parents, and every year we get a little bit better at searching for things. or, if you're my husband, you get better at becoming the fastest-ever antique shopper. he looks in a "shop" for approximately .23 seconds and decides it's time to move on, whereas i'm more the "i-need-to-touch-and-inspect-everything" type of shopper.

we calculated that we walked several miles that day, and got more than one awkward tan line (me) and sunburn (him) - but it was worth it! we came home absolutely exhausted and as much as we wanted to spend sunday relaxing and letting our feet rest on the couch with a beer, we opted for spending six (SIX) hours in the yard with my wonderful in-laws, and raking up fifty (FIFTY) bags of leaves instead.

we planted daisies, ferns, climbing ivy, hung some cute little flowers, raked up the entire back yard and cleared out a very messy, enormous flower bed.

we apparently don't believe in relaxing easter weekends around here, but that's just the way i like it.

planting a veggie garden

i mentioned briefly in my last post that since we've moved in to our new home, i was able to start working on goal #9 from my 30before30 list : plant a thriving vegetable garden. my parents came in a few weekends ago, and since they're garden aficionados, i begged for their expertise.

i wanted to start out small, since we haven't really begun working in the backyard and i'm sure things will get switched around here & there. so for right now my plants, herbs & veggies are in pots - but they will eventually make it to a box garden once we figure out where that will be.

we planted celebrity hybrid tomatoes, bonnie green bell peppers, jalapenos, cilantro and rosemary. i've been tending to them more than necessary just because i'm determined to make them thrive and be one of those women who can walk out to their garden to pick their salsa ingredients. there's just something about using vegetables, fruits and herbs that you've grown to cook for your family, you know?

this is a photo of one of my little tomato plants followed by what i've been staring at for inspiration when i'm ready to grow my garden. i know my plants look teeny tiny, and that's because they are. they were planted less than two weeks ago, but they have actually grown a lot in those two weeks! despite being hailed on-

inspiration:

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please feel free to send any tips my way - i'm pretty certain i'll need some.

i'm back.

i am absolutely angry at myself after seeing how long it has been since my last post. but i promise i've got some really good excuses lined up! i really did not think that selling a house, moving in to a new one and training an 8 week class at work all at the same time would take up all of my time.

all of it.

but! the 8 week class is now over, our old house is sold & closed on (yay!) and the new house is about 80% complete, which means i can now get back to semi-regular blogging.

i've been dying to post pictures of the new house, but somehow during the move i managed to lose my camera charger and still have not found it. i could, of course, post iphone photos but i really don't feel like they'd do it justice and so i'm going to keep hunting for the charger for a little while longer before i give in. in the mean time, though -  i've been able to start on a few of my 30before30 goals even though i haven't been able to post about them. i've worked on goal #2 (learn to speak portuguese fluently) by getting rosetta stone, #9 (plant a thriving vegetable garden) - more on that later, and #13 (decorate our forever home to reflect both my husband & i perfectly). non goal related, there's also been some time spent celebrating the husband's birthday with margaritas and homemade ice cream thanks to some of our favorite people, sxsw shenanigans in our overcrowded city, exploring our new neighborhood, a lost maples trip with close friends and their kiddos, and lots of furniture shopping.

i'll be back within a few days to post more specifics about the 30before30 list that i've been working on, but in the mean time, this is what life has looked like for me -