30 (or 20) before 30

So, I've seen this idea on other people's blogs, and I love the idea.  I started a list of things I want to do before I turn 30 next year.  A lot of the lists I've seen are 30 before 30, but I couldn't come up with quite that might many.  And some of these are kind of cheating because I know that I'm going to do them already. :)

1.  Stick with eating healthy and get to my goal weight.
2.  Run at least one half marathon.
3.  Take a class and learn to use my camera on manual mode.
4.  Go camping (it's been so long!)
5.  Go wine tasting...preferably in the wine country.
6.  Paint pottery
7.  Throw more dinner parties.
8.  Get Mama's piano tuned and start playing again.
9.  Make my own peanut butter.
10.  Make fruit rollups from scratch.
11.  Finish sewing a piece of clothing for myself.
12.  Go on all my student ministries events, including ski trip, because it's the girls senior year.
13.  Stand by my sister as maid of honor while she gets married (blog post to come).
14.  Make an awning for the back patio.
15.  Paint the one hallway in the house...it's the only thing that's still white.
16.  Find an antique phone in a fun color for the phone nook in the said hallway.  I see to only be able to find them in black.
17.  Get settled in my new job (yeah, I haven't blogged about that) and build into relationships at work.
18.  Go the beach and not get sunburned (next week!!!).
19.  Make a fancy looking cake that actually looks good. (Maybe this one).
20.  Get my sewing room/office organized.

Easter Weekend

My family spent Easter weekend in Dallas.  It was a crazy full weekend in which I took no pictures, so we're going to go bullet point style.

• The parents came over to my house and helped with a few projects.
• Did some shopping at Northpark.
• Dinner at R+D Kitchen to celebrate my birthday.
• Wedding dress shopping with Deborah.
• Lunch at Eno's so that Stephen could meet the family.  The whole family.

We took a family vote about whether Stephen could stick around. Yes, my grandfather said no...but he eventually changed his mind:

At least he's a good sport:

• Easter church service at The Village.
• Dinner at Medina Oven to celebrate Rebekah's birthday/graduation.
• A nice after-dinner party on the porch of the hotel watching a thunderstorm.
• Brunch with the out of town family before they headed back.

It was a great weekend.  I love having my family here.  

Spring has sprung!

I love Spring!  I love all the trees blooming and the flowers everywhere.  This weekend I spent time working on my yard, enjoying some of the random flowers that pop up in my flower beds, planting some in my pots in the backyard, and some herbs that I'm super excited about.

 Flower bed surprises.

 The peach tree (at least I think that's what it is) is blooming.

 Basil and cilantro!

 Hopefully I don't kill them!

Lookie Lookie

Look what got delivered this morning!



I've been looking for a new couch off and on since I moved into the house. The IKEA one from when Julia and I moved into our apartment five years ago was starting to look a little sad. While I wasn't actually looking for a couch on Saturday, I wandered through Weir's on the way to lunch and fell in love with this one! I took Jen back later that day and bought it. Just crazy. But I'm so excited about it!

And excuse the sad iphone pictures, I'll try to take a real one soon!

Catching Up

Wow - it's been a long time since I've posted.  I think we'll go bullet point for a little catch up session.

• I watched the Super Bowl with the college roommates, their husbands and children.  Really, I spent more time walking around with sweet Harper than I did actually watching the Super Bowl or commercials, but it was fun all the same. 

Isn't she precious?!

I hung out with this guy a little too...he's such an adorable little chunk!

• I ran a 5K with Jen, Shawn, and Vicky.  It was a fun, really early, and cold Saturday morning.  The race raised money for IJM, so at the very least we did it for a good cause.

• I've been doing a lot of running.  I'm training for the Big D Half Marathon - I'm going to run it with Rebekah and one of her college friends.  I've also been keeping up with my New Year's goal of Body Pump twice a week...I really love it actually.
• This week was the two year anniversary of Wanda being gone.  Crazy.  In some ways it feels like it was yesterday.
• This coming weekend is also the anniversary of home ownership for me...I closed on the 11th.  Looking at this picture - oh how I love how my house looks with green leaves on the trees.  But those same trees have been wreaking havoc on my life since the fall...dropping leaves all the time.  Non stop. So many of them.
• And I cooked these Spinach Feta Turkey Burgers this week and they are awesome. You should try them.

Snow (Ice) Day

Snowpocalypse 2011 equals working from home, fixing the heater, Nutella hot chocolate, fuzzy blankets, and PJ's all day!

Changing Colors

So...I have these great trees in front of my house. I've actually been excited about fall to see what they would look like when the leaves change color. But fall came, and they stayed green. This week they are finally changing colors and I absolutely loved it. I got home and took advantage of the last little bits of daylight yesterday to snag some pictures.

I'm going to have loads of fun raking these up this weekend!

And today's outfit:



6/30: Christmas Firsts

Today I bought my first Christmas tree. I mean, I've had tiny little ones, but today I bought the real thing and I'm quite excited about it. Especially because it was 50% off. I love a good sale.

So...here it is. I can't wait to see it set up in my front window. It's going to be great!! I'll have to try and hold off a couple of weeks before I put it up.





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A Touch of Fall

Last night I spent some time on a little craft project. I was at Michael's earlier this week and picked up supplies to make a wreath. I just love fall. I love the colors, the weather, the holidays, pretty much all of it. So I decided my front porch should be decked out for the season.

All I did was wrap one of those styrofoam wreaths in yarn and then attached some fall colored flowers with the hot glue gun. And I kind of love it. I stuck some extra flowers into my existing porch decor...now I just need some pumpkins!









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Phone time...

Ever since I bought my house, I've said that I wanted a antique phone for the little phone nook in the hallway.  Not just any phone though, I wanted one in a fun color.  So, I finally started looking recently.  Little did I know how much these things cost...or how many fun colors they have.  I'm obsessed. I might have to wait until Christmas though...I don't know if I can bear the thought of spending $200 on a phone whenever I don't even have a home phone line!

So for now, I'll dream of the fun color of phone I want to live in the little nook.

Thoughts on a Friday

• It's been a whole month since I posted on this blog.  I think it's time for a comeback.
• I've got a ton of pictures sitting on my camera waiting to be blogged.  Showers thrown, birthdays celebrated, all coming very soon.
• I'm pretty sure everyone I know is having a baby. I counted this morning, I think it's going to be 9 babies before the end of 2010.  It's very exciting and makes me want to churn out baby crafts left and right.  It also occasionally sends me into momentary "I'm 2 life stages behind" freak outs.  But they are brief, and never overshadow my excitement for my friends. 
• I have no plans for Memorial Day weekend and am very excited about it.  Relaxation and yard work, here I come.
• Rebekah and I are running the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco in October. Deborah will most likely be working it, so it will be a Welch sister weekend! Super excited, and I better get a move on.  (OH, and you get a Tiffany's necklace instead of a medal when you finish...so excited!)
• My friends Laura and Spencer are in the single digits in the countdown to the wedding...next weekend is going to be a fun one full of wedding festivities.
• I've been thinking a lot about the meaning behind Memorial Day and am so thankful for the people who serve our country so that I can live the life I do.
• I'm pretty much an expert weed puller now.  My backyard was (and still is) full of them.  The progress is slow, but I'm about halfway through the flower beds.  It's a little intense. 
• I just finished up small group for my girl's sophomore year.  We had a great time reflecting on what they've done with the first half of high school and what they want to do with the next two years.  I am blessed and challenged by those sweet girls.
• I think that might be all the randomness that I have in me this morning.  More life updates to come!

Blooming

Things are blooming in my garden, and it's so fun to walk out and see things that I didn't even know would bloom suddenly have flowers all over them.  I am scared I'm going to kill everything out there, but for now it looks really pretty!  I'm hoping for a vegetable garden next year!

The begonia's...the one thing I've planted since I've been here. It's quite questionable at this point as to whether or not they'll live.

Curtains, part 2

Perhaps the cheapest thing I've purchased for the house yet.  $2 estate sale fabric + $6 lining fabric + $3 tension rod + 1 curtain road I already owned = curtains for the dining room and kitchen windows for $11.  Love it. 

Finished Product

The living room curtains are finished.  I decided to go ahead and make them, and I couldn't be happier with the outcome.  I think the green was just what the wall needed. And they weren't very hard.  I used this tutorial for lined curtains and felt so accomplished when I was finished! Now I just need a couple of pillows for the couch and some decorative items for the coffee table and I'll be good to go. 

Please excuse the shopping bags.  Things like this often take over my entry way.

In other exciting news, Jen moved in this weekend!!!!  After almost a month of being by myself, it is fun to have a roommate again!  I absolutely love having someone around and am so glad that even though it rained all weekend, her and most of her belongings made it to the house!

I also worked on a dining room curtain project this weekend that I need to take pictures of.  They are perhaps the cheapest thing I've bought for the house yet!

Decorating Dilemma

So, I have this living room:

And these two chairs:

My big window needs some curtains to soften the room up. I've looked high and low for curtains that would coordinate with the chairs and the rest of the room without much luck.  So, I have narrowed it down to two.

1.  The slightly pricey, but oh so cute Anthropologie curtain. 

2.  The slightly less pricey, but more labor intensive fabric that I would make into curtians:

So, I need some help.  I worry that the Antho curtains won't match, but I also worry that if I make the curtains they will look cheap?  Thoughts?  Opinions?

Oh, and please excuse the terrible iPhone pictures.

Tree Trimming

I got a notice from the city of Richardson about my trees in the alley needing to be trimmed. They gave me four days to do it. So tonight I learned to use this.


Now my hand is cramping. If I can't do tax returns tomorrow, this is why!






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Progress...

I have had a blast starting to get the house in order.  My movers came on Thursday and my parents came this weekend to help me unpack and get organized and do some projects around the house.  It's starting to take shape.  So, here's a few pictures of the progress.

The Front:

The Living Room. Before, with paint, and with furniture:

The Bedroom. With paint and with furniture:

The Breakfast Room.  Before, with paint, and with furniture:

Kitchen. Before and after:

The Office. With paint only.  It's currently the collection area for everything that doesn't have a home.

It definitely still needs a lot of work.  Curtains in the living room and breakfast room. Pillows for the couch.  A bigger mirror or painting in the breakfast room.  And finishing touches all over the place, but I do absolutely love it!

And a bonus picture, the "protector" of the house that the old owner left on the front porch: