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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This is just super cute.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!