The Stockings were hung....

...on the buffet. No chimney in this house!

The buffet is new, Ryan found it on Craig's list. LOVE IT and it holds a ton, so it's really freed up some cabinet space. Ryan's stocking is on the left, mine is on the right. I made them from a Butternick pattern, I think? Had to get mom to help, couldn't figure out the cuff part. Then I forgot all over again when I made the second one. Genius, right here. I'm really happy with these. Next year, tree skirt! My snail like pace will eventually result in decorations. Eventually.

Ok, you should make these and then eat them. Because they are SO GOOD and then you feel all virtuous that you just ate a ton of veggies for dinner.

Zucchini Cakes:

This is about to get realllll scientific up in here.

Shred a zucchini, then squeeze out the water. Mix squeezed, shredded zucchini with 1 egg, a generous handful of fresh, grated parmesan, some fresh garlic, a couple sprinkles of bread crumbs (I've used panko and Italian seasoned, both with success), and a dash of seasoned salt or paprika. Now heat up a skillet with some olive oil, and drop in some of the zucchini mixture. Press it down all flat and wait until it's all brown and crispy on the bottom to flip. Flip. Cook other side. Then stand by the stove and devour the ones you just made while you wait on the second batch. Maybe give your husband one or two.

Definitely a new go to recipe. Have you made any Christmas decorations this year? And new go-to recipes for nights when you don't feel like thinking?

Bad Blogger

Bad Blogger indeed. I haven't felt like anything I do is of interest, but then I find everyone ELSE'S blogs interesting. So yeah. Doesn't make a ton of sense.

I'm addicted to Pinterest, are you? Come find me, it'll be fun.

We had Thanksgiving with my family at my aunt's house in St. Louis Thursday morning then dinner at Ryan's Dad's side that evening. We shopped the next morning like it was our job! And I ordered my bridesmaid's dress for my SIL Erin's wedding in July. I'll post when it comes in, sweet sweet J Crew!

I just finished reading this book about women in the ministry (can't find the title, go figure) but it really got me thinking. It's making me think about giving the Disciples of Christ church here in my town another shot, especially since I checked out their website and they welcome everyone, including those of different sexual orientations. I love the Unitarian Universalist church where Ryan and I got married, but its 2 hours away, and the UU fellowship here in town does not feel at all right to me. I'm feeling more and more of a pull to be invested spiritually somewhere that doesn't compromise my beliefs....I'm hoping our DOC church here will work the second go around.

I made Ryan a Christmas stocking:

The pattern threw me for quite the loop. Yay for moms who come over and help you puzzle it out! I'm working on my stocking tonight. And debating on if I should scale the pattern down and make the puppies stockings.

How hilarious is this picture of Ninja? We are throw pillow free by this point.

We got my parents family pictures for Christmas and took them last Saturday. I can't WAIT to see how they turn out! It was my whole family and 4 dogs. Whew.

How was your holiday?

Kitchen DOMINATION

I am having some serious cooking/baking triumphs this weekend, I'm on a streak!

First up I made this Cake Batter shake courtesy of Oh She Glows. I'm been very doubtful of the "frozen banana soft serve ice cream" stuff. I figured it was nonsense, that it would be healthy food poorly masquerading itself as ice cream. Which is just mean. But yesterday I had 2 bananas going bad so I figured, "why not?" If it turns out good then I have a whole new breakfast.

Holy crap you guys, this was SO GOOD. I made it this morning too, and while I was waiting for the oatmeal to soften in the fridge (the oatmeal soaks in 1 cup milk for an hour to soften it up) I was like "is it shake time yet, now? Now? SHAKE TIME!" There's 1/3 a cup of oatmeal in the shake, and today I upped it to a half a cup, which is the serving of oatmeal I normally make myself on the stove. It is a light breakfast that kept me full all morning. I added chocolate syrup instead of carob powder and used skim milk instead of almond milk. Oh also I used peanut butter instead of cashew butter. SO GOOD.

Then I made my husband and I spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, who was just getting back from an overnight cross country meet. I used this recipe from Julia's Healthy Italian Cooking and Ryan has already asked that it make a repeat performance, so they are officially on the rotation! I love adding stuff to our meal rotation that we normally have things on hand for-I suck at trying to buy and use up specialty/out of the ordinary stuff before it goes bad. Or I forget about it. I made so much we both have portions for lunch this week which excites me so much that I know I'm getting old.

Still riding high off of frozen-bananas-tasting-like-cake-batter, I made Oh She Glow's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls in preparation for a "blizzard". You basically make up some banana soft serve and blend in these cookie dough balls for a DQ-esque Blizzard, according to the recipe. These might not last long enough to make it into any blizzard, they are so delicious and the perfect little snack. I used almonds instead of cashews, white sugar instead of cane sugar and honey instead of maple syrup. These are the perfect little sweet bite that I don't feel guilty about.

Also yesterday I made Ryan homemade vanilla bean caramels, as he's a huge caramel fan. I would say that I wouldn't cook the caramels to such a high temp again-I'd pull them off the heat after they hit 335/340, because these caramels are so hard and chewy that they could yank a filling out! They soften up after you jaw on them for a few seconds, but I like a softer caramel. This was my first time making candy and using a candy thermometer, and it was much more straight forward than I thought it would be! I won't shy away from similar recipes in the future.

Whew! I've had some major cooking failures lately so it's nice to have some new recipes that work for us.

What have you cooked lately?

I'm Dumb

So I went to put in a load of laundry and was out of soap. Weird, I thought, I could've sworn I just made it! So I get everything out and start to make a double batch since I ran out so fast. 5 minutes into making the double batch and I see a handful of jugs of laundry soap on the very top shelf in the laundry room. There all along.

So...anyone need laundry detergent? I guess I won't have to make it for a while!

Here's the recipe I use, it has saved me a ton of money-we do stupid amounts of laundry for 2 people!

Homemade Laundry Soap
Grate one third a bar of bar soap (I use Ivory). Dissolve in 6 cups hot water on stove. When dissolved add half cup each Borax and Washing Soda (they had both at WalMart, $2.50 each for big boxes). Add soap mixture to 26 cups hot water (that's 1 gallon plus 10 cups) in 5 gallon bucket. Let cool and store in clean milk jugs or laundry detergent container.

I'm sure I saw this recipe somewhere but its been a bit.

I forgot to add that I use a half a cup per load, and to leave an inch or so of space in your containers because you need to shake it a bit before you use it.

Why You Shouldn't Let Your Dogs Wear Collars Unless You're Going Somewhere

It's taken me over a week to be able to sit down and write about this without getting upset all over again! We had quite the scare last week-our sweet puppy Oscar came way too close to dying on us. Spoiler: He's alive and very well!

Last Tuesday night I was sitting on the couch watching TV. Ryan was in the master bedroom (on the main floor) watching TV on his laptop, and both dogs were outside playing the yard, like normal. All of a sudden I hear this awful screaming from the back yard. I flew outside, and saw the dogs in a corner of the backyard. I knew that something was v

ery, very wrong, but I got upset so fast and couldn't figure out what was happening - it looked like a ball of panicked dogs thrashing around. I thought that maybe Ninja had seriously injured Oscar? I stupidly tried to break them up from what I thought was a totally-out-of-character-vicious fight, and Oscar bit the snot out of my left hand. Apparently I was screaming this entire time because I turned around and Ryan was vaulted off the deck and running towards me, asking me what was wrong.

I was sobbing and shaking and panicked and I had no idea what was happening. Ryan was crouched over the dogs at this point, and he yelled for me to go and get the scissors. I dashed in the house and grabbed them, then ran back outside and handed them to Ryan. At this point Ryan tells me that Ninja somehow got Oscar's coll

ar wrapped around her back teeth and Oscar was choking. He couldn't g

et any slack on the collar to cut it off of Oscar, after attempting this for 10-15 seconds. Then Oscar passed out and went totally slack, and Ryan cut the collar off.

I was across the yard losing my mind while Ryan was hunched over Oscar trying to get him to wake up. He was 100% unconscious and nonresponsive. Ryan picked him up and carried him inside and laid him down on the kitchen table. This was my worst moment..Oscar's head was flopped back and his eyes were wide open, with the pupils rolled back in his head. I thought he was dead. We laid him down on the kitchen table and Ryan is yelling at Oscar to wake up, to start breathing. Ryan rubbed Oscar's ribs and did some light chest compressions, and after 30-60 seconds of being out, Oscar raised his head up and wagged his little tail.

2 minutes later we were in the car with both dogs on the way to t

he emergency vet. Verdict: Fluid in lungs. After puking up blood and other gunk, and an overnight stay with pain killers, we picked Oscar up 7 hours later and brought him back home.

It was the absolute worst night of my life. I have never been so out of my mind scared. I didn't know what we'd do with poor Ninja if anything happened to her brother...we adopted them as a pair from an animal shelter, they've never been separated. They were kept in the same kennel at the shelter from day 1.

So yeah. If I get that worked up over my dog, how am I ever going to handle kids? These dogs are my babies, we were entrusted with their care

and well-being. If Oscar was a 12 year old dog who had had a good long life, that's one thing. But he's only 9 months old, I would be devastated if anything happened to him. And what would poor Ninja do?

What gets me the most about the whole thing is the fact that that is a scenario I never dreamed of. I've imagined them running into the street, or something, but strangled by his own collar in his sister's mouth? Now every time I come home and let them out of their crate I think "how could they have fatally injured themselves while I was gone, what if they aren't breathing, what did I not think of?" I check on them every 5 minutes, now I'm psycho mom. Also what hit me hard was how quickly I lost it, and how worthless I was. If Ryan hadn't been home, what would have happened? On the way to the emergency vet, Ryan told me he hadn't heard the dogs making all that noise at all, that he heard me yelling and that's why he ran outside. So maybe it really was a team effort. How sweet is he to be trying to comfort me on the way to the vet when all that had just happened and Oscar is laboring to breathe on my lap?

Anyway, moral of the story, please take your collar off your dog(s) unless you're en route or on a walk. Our dogs are micro-chipped, so if they somehow get lost, they are easily identified. I remember the vet saying how puppies will bite at each others necks, but I never dreamed something like this could happen. I wish I could say it was a fluke, but the vet said it's happened to her dogs before.

Quite the reminder that everything can change in an instant. Now every time I let the dogs out, they get petted and told how much I love them.

Puppies in March, when we first got them

Family Pic, May 2011

Whew! I was reeling all last week from this, it took me this long to chill out enough to write it down.

Any freak accidents ever happen to your pets?

Finally

I'm on the Twitter. Wanna be friends?

1 Year

Sunday was our 1 year anniversary. I had no idea a year could go by so fast! We made this year count too-we bought a house, we both started new careers, and we adopted 2 puppies. No wonder it's gone by so fast.


Here's the highlight reel, mostly because I just haven't gotten over how much I love our pictures yet:

All photographs courtesy of Gail Fleming.

This is how vain I am: I purposefully did not preserve my wedding dress (or um, have it cleaned, *cough*) so that I can try it on every year on our anniversary. Because I'd prefer that it continue to fit.

So it's Sunday morning, and Ryan and I are sitting down to a lovely breakfast that included the best bacon of all time (from a no-hormone, no-antibiotic, happy pig farm), and Ryan goes "So how bad is my day going to be if this dress doesn't fit?" Luckily we didn't have to find out! It zipped right up like a dream. Don't you wish you could wear your dress again? It reminded me how much I love my dress. And how much I need to get mine cleaned! It's filthy. But the dry cleaning costs like $150, and I am not excited about dropping that much cash. Maybe with my Christmas money!

How was your first anniversary? Did your first year of marriage go by fast too? Did you preserve your dress? Are you vain like me and busted it back out?

It All Ends Here

Or, my un-asked for opinion on the last Harry Potter movie.

I rocked the premier with the sisters and Alli's sweet boyfriend Chris. We all wore Harry Potter shirts Alli made for past movie releases. Mary and I are way too lazy to just make our own. We got to the theatre last Thursday at 7:20 to get in line for Part 1 at 9 p.m. We watched part 1, then had an hour wait until they started part 2 around 12:25. (REALLY WEHRENBERG)

Friday at work sucked, but it was worth it! We were in line behind Hagrid-and the guy was huge. He even had an umbrella!

We decided that me and Alli are Ravenclaws while Mary is a Gryffindor. Can you tell me and Mary apart? Having a sister who grows up and suddenly looks just like you is like getting a twin in your 20s. Kinda freaky!

I loved the movie, but I do have a major issue with the director changing sh*t just for giggles. Little, minor things....like, do you honestly think you can improve upon the book? Because you can't. I really hated that Harry didn't go into the headmaster's study after killing Voldemort to see Dumbledore crying tears of joy as all the other headmaster's applauded. And he didn't fix HIS wand with the Elderwand before he destroyed it! AHHHH. I did appreciate the focus on the trio of Ron, Harry and Hermione. I thought that was very sweet. And I cried and cried when his parents, Sirius and Lupin showed up. No surprise there, I bawl my eyes out at that part in the book. I guess the movie was just like every other HP movie-some parts honored the books while some didn't.

I do think they could've made it longer. And had more battle scenes. And extended the epilogue a bit, especially to include Teddy.

I'm so sad it's over. Harry forever!

Did you catch the final installment yet?

To Do List

There are so many projects I want to and a very limited amount of time, with all the summer traveling we've been doing! Courtesy of the blogs and Pinterest, I end up with a year's worth of projects in a week's time.

This is just outrageously pretty. I'm going to start shopping for embroidered pillowcases ASAP. My friend Jodie just had a girl, and I'm starting to think maybe I just need to have a little stock of homemade bibs/receiving blankets/baby paraphernalia since lots of our friends are getting knocked up.

Source

A bed for the dogs needs to be next on my list. We're hoping to transition them from their crate to a bed in our room at night, and we need a bed for them first. All the cushions I've found have been so expensive-like $30/$40! I want something decently sizable so both 17ish lb dogs can cuddle up, so I'd have to up the size of this bed big time.

Seriously, what cat is going to sit on a bed designated by someone other than themselves?

Source

I want this skirt SO BAD. I LOVE the chevron. I have all pencil skirts, and I'm trying for some slightly more full silhouettes, this being an ideal transition. And the chevron pattern? I could wear this to work once a week. My grandma says this would be a good beginning apparel sewing project....I have a tendency to dive into less than simple apparel projects that end badly. No more. I need to start at the bottom. I've conquered an apron, so I feel ready for this skirt.

Source

It's the new Ginger pattern from Colette patterns.

This is a no-brainer project that requires me to only remember to buy magnets, because I already have the dish. Sticking pins into the pin cushion is clearly exhausting, and it would be so much less taxing to hurl the pin into the dish.

Source

So my husband is a classic piler. He has little piles all over the house with vitally important stuff. Maybe if I could have enough storage bins then the piling would be more contained? I just like storage bins. I want one for the dogs stuff, I want a handful for the laundry room, and I want a few for my nightstand. Also for my sewing room. I want lots of these. And one for the guest baths.

Source

This is just super cute.

Source

This is potentially the cleverest bit of embroidery I have ever seen. I want to make throw pillows for our bed then embroider this on them.

Source

Originally stitched by Buitenlander25 via Flickr

Um yeah. Also I'd like to make a quilt for my sister sometime. Then I have a finished quilt top that needs to have a completed backing and then finished up completely.

Someday, I will get to some of this. I'm smack in the middle of a present for my sister, and I'm working on a t-shirt quilt for one of Ryan's cousins. After those 2 things, I am closed for business for a good while so I can catch up on some stuff for myself....I'm really bad at sewing away for other's, but I tend to backburner my own stuff.

What are you working on this summer?

I just finished reading....

Lots of books! Some good, some bad, one or two AMAZING. I was like a fat kid with cake.

I started reading The Taking by Dean Koontz on the way down to Alabama.

Source

Ryan is a big Dean Koontz fan, and I picked this copy up at a used bookstore for $1. The book was written in 2004, and Ryan says his stuff goes downhill post 2000. The beginning was good, and the ending was great, but the middle went ON and ON and ON. The plot is pretty out there, but I really liked the way he wrapped it up. I'm not mad I wasted the time reading it, but I won't pick it up again either.

Next I read Falling Angels, by Tracy Chevalier, who also wrote The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

Source

The book seemed more about the setting than anything else-an elaborate Victorian cemetery. It was almost as if the author had a picture of this place in her head and that's what made it down on paper the best. The plot was not nearly as well developed as the background.


The Help, by Kathryn Stockett was SO GOOD.

Source

I'm sure this is old news for most of you; the book is a best seller and it's been out for quite a while. But I loved it from start to finish. It was by far the best book I have read in a bit. The book chronicles a young journalist fresh out of Ole Miss who decides to interview the domestic help of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60's, fueled by her friend Hilly's campaign to require separate bathrooms for black maids. There's a movie coming out with Emma Stone playing Skeeter- I can't wait!

Then I read another Chevalier book, The Lady and the Unicorn.

Source

Once again, it seemed like Ms. Chevalier took one "thing" and built the story around that. In this book, it was a series of famous tapestries. Not my favorite book by any means, but she did tell you what happened to all the characters at the end, which I always appreciate.


After that I picked up What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth: Radio Shangri-La, by Lisa Napoli.

Source

This was a documentary-esque book about a woman who works for NPR who travels to the remote country of Bhutan, where the GDP doesn't exist....instead, there's a Gross Domestic Happiness measurement. I loved it, and it made me want to find out more about that little country. This is a great travel book that really takes you to Bhutan.


I also read Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett.

Source

This was all about Sir Thomas More's adopted daughter, Meg Griggs. Sir Thomas More was a big muckety-muck in King Henry the VIII's court who stubbornly clung to Catholicism and refused to recognize the king as higher than the pope-which ended in his execution. Sir Thomas More was famous for his revolutionary schooling of his family, particularly the women. This book did drag a bit but it was a really good piece of historical fiction basted on real life events.


Rounding out my beach vacation was The Beach, by Alex Garland.

Source

I liked this much more than I thought I would! A group of travelers stumble upon the location of a legendary and secret beach in Thailand, and the people they find there have created their own world in paradise. This reminded me of Lord of the Flies but with grown ups. And fields of marijuana.


I also picked up Swampandia! by Karen Russell, Bad Men by John Connolly, Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark, Being Dead by Jim Crace, and A Secret Gift by Ted Gup, none of which I could finish. I got 2/3's of the way in to Swamplandia! but just couldn't power through. I get maybe 5 pages into to about half of the books I read and just put them down-there are too many good books out there to force myself to slog through a book I don't enjoy.


I love gorging myself on books on the beach! I also signed up for the adult summer reading program at my local library, like a nerd. I LOVE it.


Are you doing any summer reading?

The Beach

We just got back from a week on the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama. It was the most amount of time I've had off work since.....2008. I only took 2 days off work for my wedding, so having a whole week to relax has been heaven. AND Monday is a holiday so I'm off work for that too!

This is where we lazed out big time.

My sister's dog would have nothing to do with any ocean.

Mary and Ryan constructed several epic sandcastles.

We also outlet shopped, boogie boarded and got TAN. How did I fill the rest of my time?

And lots of it.

It was to die for!

I am so fortunate.

(Aren't I the runt of the litter?)

We were ready to get home and see these guys though:

Next travel goal: Honeymoon!

So big!

Puppies grow SO FAST! Here they are at the shelter the first night we met them back in March:

Here's them about a month ago, at my sister's graduation party (Ryan's wearing the same shirt, weird!):

It's ridiculous how much we love these dogs. In our defense, they are as sweet as can be, blissfully happy, playful and lovable. We couldn't have asked for a better pair. Plus they spent the first couple months of their life in a shelter, we have lots of loving to make up for!

That dress makes me look like I'm huge, but I swear I'm not! Next month is our 1st anniversary (what the H*LL happened to this year?!) and I'll be trying o

n my wedding dress (that I still haven't gotten cleaned....it costs like $100, boo) to ensure that it fits. Which it will. But if it doesn't, it won't be pretty.

Anyway, with Ryan being gone as much as he is for work during the school year, these little boogers have turned out to be the best company with fur.

Guess who's lazy? Oscar is.

Ninja getting loved on:

I'll stop being obnoxious about my dogs (at least I stopped with the bouquets, right?). Both of my sisters-in-law are engaged, so I'm sure I'll have lots of wedding stuff to fill you guys in on. I finished my first quilt (I made a second for a friend who's pregnant too) and I have a quilt top finished that needs to be basted and quilted. I need to make a t-shirt quilt for my husband's cousin Mike, so you'll see some of that. Also our one year anniversary is next month, and there are some wedding pictures that....well let's just say they didn't make they cut. You'll see why.

Is it sad that my dog-raising strategy is identical to my child-rearing strategy? Namely, let them run until they have no more nonsense left.

Did you rock the newlywed cliche of getting a dog?

Pinterest

I'm on Pinterest and it's like shopping but for free. If you want to follow me e-mail me!

Busted

You guys, this blog has been broken for like a month or more! I couldn't figure out how to fix it (it looked like Google had removed it for some reason?), and then I checked today and it's BACK!

Not that you've missed much. I'm boring.

But! Our puppies are getting so big, we had a huge group of friends down for a weekend, we're going to the beach on Saturday, and I have quilts to show you. Also I figured out how to make delicious frozen yogurt with Greek yogurt and fruit so in my mind-100% guilt free. Oh and I went to a wedding last week that had Chiavari chairs! And they were everything I thought they'd be. And I've been lifting weights so I'm working on a set of guns.

I've missed you guys!

New Addition(s)

We have been BUSY lately!

A couple weeks ago, Ryan and I doubled our family size--we adopted 2 puppies from a no kill shelter!

The blonde is a girl, and Ryan named her Ninja. She does these flying Ninja lea

ps that suit her name perfectly. That handsome thing you see on the right is Oscar, our little man.

They are beagle/schnauzer mixes, and they are 4 months old. We love them to pieces!

As you can see, they have it very rough.

They have plenty of toys, but of course the most attractive toy is the one the other dog has. Watching them trot around neck in neck with the same toy in their mouths is unbelievably cute.

They put on the most pitiful act with baths. They shiver and carry on, and we feel sorry for them of course.

We are so lucky to have them! They're so sweet and friendly.

As far as potty training goes, I think we're on track. They go out every 4 hours or so (even in the middle of the night, ugh), and we still have a couple accidents that happen when we deviate from that schedule. They know how to sit, and they mostly listen. They have these crazy spurts of energy for a couple hours then they absolutely collapse. They are happy little puppies, and we adore them.

We have officially joined the ranks of the Newlyweds with dogs! It's good practice for parenthood, right?

I just finished reading....

Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married, by Gary Chapman.

Source

Same guy who wrote the Five Love Languages. Most "self-help" books make me feel like crap about my marriage-all I do is pick out the stuff I'm doing wrong. Not helpful. But this book was quite the confidence booster; I picked out lots of stuff that Ryan and I OWN at! Like the chapter on "solving disagreements without arguing." Granted, we're human and we argue, but we aren't hateful to each other about it. We're both totally fine with "apologizing being a sign of strength" and that we "married into each other's families". Domination!

The book honestly wasn't that helpful, but I did get from it a sense that we started our marriage off well, that our foundation is good. So...nothing I didn't know all ready.

Though Ryan still thinks the "love languages" are comical.

Also, the author comes across as kind of an *ss to his wife.

Are you a Gary Chapman fan? Do self-help books send you into a downward spiral of "my marriage is DOOMED!"?

Our House

We bought our house in November, and so far all I've shown you are somewhat scary construction pictures. I've been waiting until the house was clean and it was sunny out, but I settled for no sun and clean house! We are still working on so much, but we've come a long way from the super dirty and neglected house we bought a few months ago.


It's so gray and dreary looking! We've hardly done any yard work, so in 6 months, this should look totally different. The landscaping is so overgrown, we really just tried to get enough done that our house wouldn't look completely terrible all winter long.







We have a nice deep front porch, here's the view:



There's hooks for a porch swing. Oh and that bush, on the lower left? Bushes like that line the front and one side of the house. They're infested with poison ivy. Those'll be fun to work with!


You walk into the living room from the front porch. This room is pretty much done-we scraped the popcorn from the ceilings, painted the ceiling and repaired/painted the walls. I can't wait to get a comfy sectional in here, the room is so big we can fit one easily.


We hung our Christmas cards up on the door frame in between the living room and the kitchen. Hey Emily! Still need to take these down....


Another view of the living room. We spend lots of time on this couch. We got the blinds at Penney's during a day after Thanksgiving sale for a killer price. I cannot believe they fit our weird-sized windows. I wasn't super pumped about them initally-I thought they'd look kind of naked and such, but they are so easy to clean, and I think the molding at the top makes up for no curtains. That's what my sister Alli said and I'm going with it.


When I moved out of the house my sister and I shared, she let me take this console with me. We bought it in a local antique store a couple years ago for $20. I need to decorate this-that cake stand was used at our wedding! This is also where our wedding album lives.


Wedding album! I wanted to be cheap and do a MyPublisher book, but Ryan talked me into this, and I am so glad he did.


I literally sent the poor photographer over 50 edits. She probably hates me.

I love our kitchen. It's so big and bright, and the table in the middle acts as an island when needed. Ryan is painting the cabinets white for me....they are huge pains. Like 2-3 coats of oil based paint with curing times, obnoxious brush clean ups and lots of sanding. He is amazing.

Cabinet close up.




More kitchen. There are 41 doors poor Ryan has to paint. I'm happy to not have doors....saves time.






Our house was built in 1924, and some genius before us added a main floor laundry right off the kitchen. LOVE. I have always had basement laundry, and now I can't go back. This room needs lots of work-we want to tile the floors and add way more shelving. I'd like to store cleaning stuff here as well as kitchen stuff we don't use that often, like some appliances.




The master is right off the kitchen. It's kind of weird placement but I really like it. And its so close to the laundry room that putting clothes away is easy. I really like our bedding. We pretty much just need furniture/accessories in here.






The door to the master bath used to go outside, but another genius added a master bathroom. I hate the blue panes in the door, I really want to switch them out eventually. The transom over the door actually works! I just love old houses.





The genius who added the master bath unfortunately wasn't smart enough to insulate. So this bathroom is super chilly.


When you walk into the bathroom and turn right, you see this.




When you turn left, there's the closet. Very handy for getting ready in the morning, everything is right there.




The office is right off of the living room. It's our current dumping ground. Eventually this will be Ryan's spot-he has some really cool baseball memorabilia that he can showcase here. This room had carpet that we ripped up just to find holes and 3 different finishes on the wood floors. We'll get these floors refinished and add a piece of trim to the baseboards to hide the gap created when we ripped out the carpet. You solve one problem (gross carpet) just to create another one (hole in floor)!


This full bathroom is also right off the living room. We replaced the light fixture (the one you see will also go in the other 2 full bathrooms, we bought 3), the shower head, the towel bar, and we need to replace the toilet. And we ripped out the old oak medicine cabinet and Ryan installed a simple mirror with beveled edges.









The dark wood on these stairs kind of sucks to keep clean. Every speck of dust shows!




This is the future reading nook-Ryan is going to build bookshelves and he bought me this awesome chaise for Christmas!




On Sunday mornings I like to bring my coffee up here and read. It feels like a vacation.


There are 2 bedrooms and a full bath off of the foyer, here's the unfinished one:

And here's the finished one. We had our first house guest this weekend! The hotel is open for business.

That's my little sewing spot, with a new quilt draped all over the place. Eventually my sewing room will be in the unfinished bedroom, but its in here until we get the other space together.


The storage space kicks *ss.





We have a deck that looks out over the fenced in part of the yard....just ready and waiting for a puppy!

Whew. We are so, so fortunate to be able to live in such a great home. I've always wanted an old house, and thanks to my handy husband I have one!

I'll post on decorating ideas later, I have TONS.

So in our first 4 months of marriage, we both got new jobs and bought/renovated a house. We aren't good at taking things slow!

Did you take on lots of stuff right after your wedding?