Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice

I’m pretty sure pumpkin spice is on a mission to take over the world. When we went grocery shopping we saw just about every food item flavored with pumpkin spice. Peanut butter, yogurt, cookies, trail mix, ice cream…I’m surprised we didn’t see pumpkin milk there. I’m proud to say that only 2 pumpkin flavored goodies made its way into our cart, and of course pumpkin sugar cookies. Which reminds me. Ya know that warning on every cookie dough wrapper that says do not consume raw dough? Well for 24+ years I have thrown caution to the wind and have consumed lethal amounts of cookie dough with no consequence. That is until last night. I had a little round pumpkin shaped cookie dough and was super sick the rest of the night! I guess my careless cookie dough consumption days are behind me.

Since mister is attending grad school 2 nights a week this quarter, I’m trying to cram as many fall activities into our weekends. We have several parties on the docket, trips to the world’s cutest pumpkin patch in the works, and I’m crossing my fingers for an open weekend to drive down to Galena. Seriously isn’t fall just the best? I have to question anyone’s sanity if they tell me that they hate fall. The colors, the weather, the smells, everything is just pure perfection. I hope y’all are having a good fall season so far!

We live very close to this beautiful recreation center. My Mom's side of the family celebrate her's and my Dad's birthdays a couple weekends ago right by this little lake.

Pumpkin Spice Salted Carmel lattes should be illegal. This was a perfect pick me up on a tired Saturday morning.

The sunsets around here have been insane lately. I may have broken the law and risked my life to snap a pic of this one.

We recently shifted our furniture around in our living room. Now our couch faces the window instead of being pushed against it. I love being able to look out our big window.

Kitchen Inspiration

Our house remodel is chugging full steam ahead! Right now Mister & my Dad have been working like mad men on the outside out the house. I'm really hoping that our house will be painted by Halloween. I'm so excited to see the color, and our new doors in place, and hanging our fun door knocker, and SO many other things that go with giving your house a major face lift. EEEE!!! So much excitement over here. 

Anywho, while the guys are outside painting, I have been very slowly painting our cabinets and working towards updating our kitchen. Once our cabinets are 100% done, I'll be sharing my so fun story about the process. But while I'm working on bringing our cabinets into the 21st century, I can't help but to day dream about the entire finished product. I love cooking & baking and I'm just not into cooking while our kitchen is in this mode. It reminds me of when my family re-did our kitchen way back when. We had a make shift kitchen in our basement bar and I don't remember many inspired meals. Dreaming about our house in it's final stages makes me extremely happy, I can't wait to be done! 

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Love the fun & unique backsplash!

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Everything about this kitchen is amazing. The stenciled wall, baskets on top, and the bold color of the cabinet insides! 

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We're doing open shelving for a part of our kitchen to help open up the space. I love everything on these shelves! 

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Instead of a dining room, we have a little nook in our kitchen. This is close to what we're hoping to do...plus a bold wallpaper on the walls to pump it up!

My Dad is helping us with a lot of updating the kitchen. Seriously I don't know where our house would be without my Dad's help. He's building us our countertop, helping with installing our open shelving, someday building our breakfast nook! The flooring also needs to be replaced and other fun updates, but I'm trying to keep calm and not freak out over how much needs to be done. Learning patience is on the top of my to-do list. 

Fabulous Fall

It's no secret that I love Fall. These days that love has turned into borderline obsession. I want everything pumpkin scented or flavored. Sweaters are slowly creeping back into my closet. I'm itching to go Fall decor crazy. It doesn't help that the usual Summery September has become an early Fall dreamland. Cool weather and moody skies seem to be here to stay! Which is just fine with me. I'm also loving it that all my favorite clothing sites seem to be on board with Fall as well! Long sleeved dresses, comfy cozy scarves, and boots are abound! 

1. In the Audience Dress//2.Herringbone Desert Wedge//3.Polka Dot Midi Skirt

4.Fall into Place Crochet Dress//5. Merona Satchel//6.Grey Suede Brogues

Everything about Fall fashion screams comfort. The jewel tones, the soft warm fabrics, everything is made for romps through the apple orchards or antiquing on a crisp afternoon! 

Washington DC Continued...

I think the number one thing we all were looking forward to in DC the most was seeing all the monuments. One of my girlfriends reminded us every half hour that we needed to see Lincoln and I think the next time I mentioned the Korean War Memorial, someone was going to smack me. We all practically ran to the Washington Monument. Seeing all these monuments and memorials was so amazing. They were all still so stunning to look at and of course the history behind each one was not to be forgotten. It was really so wonderful to spend some time in our Nation's Capitol with some of my favorite people. 

The Washington Monument. I had a little nickname for it that I'm sure wore on Mr. a bit! 

WWII Memorial

We couldn't resist!

The Lincoln Memorial

Korean War Memorial

We all loved DC and by the end of the night we were exhausted. We spent 10 hours in DC and walked over 26,000 steps. We ended the night with a walk past the White House and people watching in the park. DC was wonderful, but honestly Delaware was so much fun! Can't wait to share more on our trip. 

Summer Sun

How is it that it's already August!? I feel like the Summer just began and now it's ending. I feel like there's so much left to do before it gets too cold. We haven't walked to our local ice cream store nearly enough, we haven't enjoyed enough cocktails at my favorite pub, we haven't visited any of the beaches nearby (we have 2 beaches that are less than 5 minutes from our house!!) and I haven't gotten nearly as much done to the house as I'd like to. Our final summer task before Mister goes back to school is to paint the exterior of our home. I am obsessed with the paint color we've picked out but I'm less excited about the amount of work that has to go into getting our little home painted. BUT I can't wait to see how our home will look. No more peeling dark green and nasty dirty doors. Finally our house will have the makeover it deserves. I am planning on tackling our kitchen as much as I can when mister goes off to school again. I am hoping to have it completed by Christmas time. Here's hoping...

On a more personal front, I am back on the weight loss wagon and am trying desperately to lose weight. Starting a family is in our not too distant future and I want to get my body and my health in tip top shape before we start trying to add to our brood. It is not easy to lose weight though and even though this is not news to me, it's still hard to grasp. I'll do a 30 minute work out and expect a fit body when I wake up, which is duh not practical but that's how my crazy brain works. I'm trying to kick sugar out of my diet but I have a crazy sweet tooth and I go crazy if I don't have chocolate. Remember in the movie Elf when Buddy the Elf lists all the food groups and it's all candy? Yeah same here. Me & Buddy would be besties. But I keep trying and I'm hoping I can get my brain and stomach on the same wave length!

That's pretty much all for now...stay tuned for a few more stories about our vacation to the East Coast! I'm still reminiscing and miss being there so much!

Summer Vacation-Washington D.C.

In the middle of July mister & I drove to Delaware to see a very good friend of ours. Aaron was the first friend I made in college and he soon became the best friend of my hubs. He even stood up in our wedding as one of the best men. When we graduated college and our wedding was over, Aaron headed back to the East Coast and we all missed him like crazy. Last year our group of friends was reunited when Aaron came back for a mutual friend's wedding. This year we all decided it was our turn to make the trip. So we left on a Wednesday morning for Greenwood, DE and made it out there very early Thursday morning. The rest of our group (the first girlfriends I made in college) were flying into D.C. Thursday afternoon, so we decided to make a day out of it. The guys were the only ones who had ever been to D.C. so we played mega tourists. 

As soon as we found a parking spot, one of our friends declared her craving for BBQ so we scouted out a fun place to eat. Hill Country BBQ did not disappoint. 

I'm on board with any restaurant that serves sweet tea in ball jars

We then set out for the Smithsonian Museums. I'm a huge history buff so I was beyond excited for the American History museum. Well it didn't really live up to my expectations, but some of the exhibits were very interesting and kinda fun. 

Dorothy's Ruby Slippers

Miss Piggy

George Washington's Suit

WWII Propaganda 

First Ladies Exhibit 

Jackie O's dress that she wore to a State dinner

After the American History Museum we walked next door to the Museum of Natural History. This one we all loved. It was so fun walking through the animal exhibits and getting introduced to new animals that seem to be roaming the Earth. The girls especially enjoyed the Jewel & Gemstones exhibit. The Hope Diamond is absolutely exquisite and I found my next birthday gift from the Mister. 

Our wonderful friend Aaron 

Me and and the ladies

How beautiful is the lobby for the museum?

Beautiful emerald ring, my next birthday gift!

The Hope Diamond was such a stunner

After the museums, we proceeded to walk our feet off trying to see as many monuments as possible...but more on that next time!

Living Room Overhaul

At first this post was titled, "Living Room Makeover". And then I thought back on how our living room looked when we first moved in, and makeover simply didn't seem strong enough. The wooden floors were stained, the trim chewed up by the previous owner's dog, the walls were cracked and painted the worst color of green. Just take a look for yourself...

The hardwood floors looked awful.

Every wall had a crack in it and the window treatments were destroyed.

Not necessarily living room related, but I can't resist that corgi tush.

Prepping for it's overhaul 

Our big bay window (and it gives me the chills seeing all that snow!)

We spent the first month of living here camping out in the basement. While we were down there, Mister & my Dad sanded and stained the living room and two upstairs bedrooms. We settled on a dark dark color to give the spaces upstairs a classy vibe. Now that the Corgi has made the house his own, I'm slightly regretting the dark color. White dog hair kinda clashes with hardwood. 

We then decided that we needed to paint the walls. Walking through the front door and seeing that green was just depressing. I knew that I wanted the showcase shades of blue & darker green in the living room, so I figured that grey would be the best neutral to shlep on the walls. After painting everything upstairs, we lived with a pair of lounge chairs as our sole furniture for another week or so in the living room. My desperate hunt for an emerald velvet couch kept our furniture purchasing in limbo. I finally gave up my search and settled on a sandstone grey furniture. We actually got a great deal from Ashley Furniture on a 6 piece set. Seriously if you're on a budget, this is the place to go. 

Once the furniture was in place we settled on that being enough for the time being. Mister had grad school work up to his eyeballs and I was being the supportive wife and suffering alongside him (i.e. binge watching Gossip Girl on Netflix). Finally when the weather improved and the quarter ended for school, we picked up where we left off and got back to work. Trim was installed, new window treatments hung, and we spent an entire weekend hanging art, pictures, and fun doo dads. Our living space still has a lot of work that needs to be done. Outlets need to be replaced, the tile by our front door needs to be torn out, the front door needs to be replaced, and I know I'm not done decorating. But for now, our little house is starting to feel more & more like a home. Take a peek at our "after" pictures of the overhaul. 

Yay! The piles of snow have been replaced with sunshine and happy green trees!

Long gone are the wooden blinds and in their place are lovely curtains.

Hanging to the right of our TV is a drawing done by one of our favorite people, Aaron. He drew it for a class and was kind enough to give it to me when we were in school.

The gallery wall that I'm obsessed with. I'm already planning on how I'll rearrange things in place for the Holidays! P.S.-the horizontal painting was done by my Great Nana. 

We found this old record player in my Nana & Papa's attic. It is the most loved piece of furniture that there ever was.

The view from the front door. That rug has one corner out the door.

Obviously we need an overhead light or fan in place of that hole in the ceiling, but for now we are loving this space. We spend almost all of our time here so it makes sense that this was the first room that we tackle. Next up is the kitchen! I cannot wait to go hog wild in there!