Monday, May 21, 2012

My First Wedding Shower

This weekend was a very nice, but busy weekend! I had 2 wedding showers to attend for my dear friend Katie. One Saturday, in Covington and one Sunday at the Phi Mu house, which I was a co-host for. I am in two weddings this summer, which conveniently fall 2 weeks apart. This means lots of showers and dates to keep straight, and a lot of double-booked Saturdays and Sundays. I have come to the conclusion that I have just flat out gone crazy. I can't seem to keep it all straight anymore no matter how hard I try!  The two other girls who hosted with me and I decided it would be easiest to just assign jobs that we would each be over, especially since one of the girls lives out of town. So, our out of town friend took care of invites, the other girl took care of decorations, and I was over food. I have never hosted a shower of any sort in my life, and my anxiety was at an all time high! Thankfully, everything turned out just fine and I am pretty sure I can call my first shower a success. Here are a few pictures I snapped of the food and decor. It was all fairly simple because the house is already pretty nicely decorated and we wanted easy clean-up, but it looked great nonetheless.

Food Table and Banner
Cute napkins!

Food Table - Wheat thins, spinach dip , veggies, pinwheels, chicken salad croissants
Dessert - Fruit and homemade fruit dip, cupcakes from Muddy's (They tried to incorporate the bride peacock theme by using pretty sprinkles and making one with that beautiful teal icing!)
Me, the bride-to-be, and one of the other two hostesses.
And while this has nothing to do with the shower and is hard to see - my sweet boyfriend took me to Texas de Brazil for dinner since he knew I had a long, semi-stressful day. It was DELICIOUS as always!


What did you do this weekend?

Friday, May 18, 2012

Paint, Paint, Paint!

     As I stated in my last post, I am currently in the process of updating the house I will be moving into in July. The first step in the updating process is painting. I am almost positive the house has not been painted in and this week I have been picking, liking, hating, maybe liking, loving and everything in between, paint colors. As I shared, the bathrooms were going to be the biggest obstacle thanks to that b.e.a.utiful tile, but they surprisingly turned out to be the easiest to decide on a color for due to the fact that there were minimal options to begin with.The full bath, hallway, and guest room are all going to be the same color. Dining room/living room will be the same color. Master bedroom and half bath will be different (thanks to Katie over at Caught In the Middle With You for the idea for my master bedroom color!). I am uploading a picture of each room as they are now and attaching the link to the color that they are going to be when finished. Some of the colors don't look the same on the computer of course, but you can get an idea. Obviously I will post actual before and after pictures once we get it all painted in the next couple of weeks. 

Master Bedroom - "Dusty Miller"

Full Bath - "Creamy Mushroom"

Guest Room - "Creamy Mushroom"

Kitchen

Living Room/Dining Room - "Antique Leather"

This will be the "dining" side - "Antique Leather"
Half Bath - "Silver Drop"

This is part of "living room" side - "Antique Leather



What do you guys think? Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

My (soon to be) New Home

     School will be out in 7 days, and I cannot wait to enjoy a couple months of relaxation with some wedding celebrations in between wedding celebrations with some relaxation in between :). Summer approaching also means the end of my lease is coming very soon. I have been bouncing various ideas around in my head for the last couple of months of what I was going to do when my lease ended.

     Almost all of my close friends (roommate candidates) are getting married or they have moved away, so I figured I would be moving somewhere and living alone. Living alone is fine with me, I don't have to worry about anyone else and their mess irking me or my mess irking anyone else. However, I have serious anxiety and tend to freak myself out A LOT thinking that I am going to get robbed, killed, kidnapped, etc and so with my craziness in mind I was going to have to find somewhere I knew I would feel safe by myself. Sadly, I was finding that the only places I found that provided me with what I was looking for were going to cause me to be broke and be forever stuck in my apartment with no funds to do much else. It was at that point that I decided I would start investigating buying a house. I was/am tired of throwing so much money away into something that leaves me with nothing to show for. All of the deposits, regulations, and other trivial things that come along with renting and apartment have worn me thin these last 4 years and I wanted to look into other options.

     The house hunting began. I made some calls, found out an estimate of what I would be able to afford, looked in areas I knew I would like to live, and talked with my parents several times about this whole idea. While I was exploring my "buying a house" options, my grandfather, who was 96 years old, passed away. This was a very difficult time for my whole family, he was such an inspiring man who is greatly missed every day by many people. Through this unfortunate loss, I somehow managed to gain a new opportunity - to live in his home. The house he lived in is a house I have known my entire life. It has been in our family for quite some time, in fact, my parents even lived there the first year they were married. My grandpa left the house to my dad and his 3 sisters. I mentioned to my dad that I might be interested in living there if everything worked out ok. It was in the area I was looking to buy a house and it was a place that already felt like a second home. After a multitude of discussions between my dad and me and his sisters and him, we decided that I could move in the house in July and rent it from them.

     So here I am, back to renting, but I don't feel like I am just throwing my money away this time. Due to the fact that it is my families home, I won't be tied down to a lease (in case something were to happen), required to pay stupid deposits and pet fees, and it allows me to live somewhere more or less stress free to buy me more time to figure out if I will be in Memphis long enough to make buying a house worth my while. Another positive to this situation - I have found a roommate (more than likely) which makes this whole thing even better! I will be spending a lot less money than I would have been anywhere else, I am not tying myself to down to staying in Memphis by buying a house, and what I think is the best part - I get to watch this house transform over the next couple of months. This house is old and it out just plain out-dated. We are going to re-paint the whole house, re-do one floor, and refinish all of the hardwood floors. I am going to try and blog with updates as they come and I really can't wait to see the "before" and "afters" and share them with my little blog family. For now I am only going to put up before pictures of the... interesting... bathrooms I have to work with. I am looking to figure out what color to paint them. We will paint them as well as re-do the wall decor. I wish we could just gut them and get rid of that hideous tile, but that just isn't in the cards right now, so I will have to find other ways to make due. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts!!

Half Bath -  Lovely gray/blue tile wall and floor, with nice baby pink tile outline....

Half Bath - close up of tile

Full Bath : Baby pink tile with brown/red tile outline...



Full Bath

Close up of tile - not perfect depiction of the color, but close enough.





Happy Tuesday, hope you have a great rest of the week!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Maxi Love

I have been on quite a Maxi dress kick lately, the only problem is I can't seem to find many affordable ones that fit! Below is one I have found, bought, and fallen in love with! I wish I could find more that fit like it. It is so comfy, lightweight, and I can wear it to school with a light cardigan over it :) I have a feeling my summer wardrobe will be filled with dresses of all lengths, but especially Maxi's - now I just need to get to shopping! What summer look are you tuning into?