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:

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

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 -

weekends were made for...

we finally got a chance to get away from the house this weekend and it was so worth it.

the weekend was mostly filled with drinks with friends, yard games, outdoor workouts in beautiful 65 degrees, and super bowling. which really means: watching beyonce.

we're keeping our fingers crossed this week that someone viewing the house puts in a serious offer so that it's one less stressful thing looming in our minds. wish us luck!

psst. that's me in the middle there in the last picture - i'm going to invest in those keds again!



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.