Life Laid Bear

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

October has been one big blur. A blur of happiness, of progress, of cooler weather, and best of all sweet pups and lots of love. We painted two rooms this month, I lothe painting, but it is a nice change in pace to have some time to work on the house.  

Kyle make me a very simple bath caddy recently, and I was able to try it out this past weekend. It works perfect and we had all of the supplies already at the house. Win, win!

The bathroom is painted, and we are feeling good about the color. So the only thing we are missing are two large pieces of art, and to pick some curtains to make. The plan is to knock it all out by the beginning of November! 

Happy October!

 

around here

If someone told me that they passed off their bad luck bug to me, I would believe it. I wouldn't hesitate to believe it after the past two weeks. But hopefully that bad luck is turning and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. My hope is that the light will bring me right into the holiday season and into all of the deliciousness that is food season! So close, I can almost taste it.

But for now, we have Halloween coming up and some fun decorations up around the house for all of the kids. Our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween and this year we are excited to be hosting a small family costume party! We can't wait. 

Our cousin, Kenny, makes amazing wood pieces and kindly made us a fall inspired pumpkin for our front door (we have a Christmas one on order as well).

We added some new plants outside, and among the new comers is a really neat pineapple plant. We are so excited to see how it continues to grow. 

My father in law came by last Saturday and helped us put up a new light in our breakfast nook, and so far I am enjoying it. We also changed the color of the bathroom from a dark burgandy to a light blue. The jury is still out, but I am hoping it grows on me. 

Have you done any home renovations lately? How did you like the change? 

Graduation Day

This past weekend, my brother graduated from high school. We are 5 years apart, so I knew this day would come but I wasn't fully prepared when I saw him walk across the stage at the ceremony, I can tell you there were unexpected tears spilled. The ceremony was relatively short but very beautiful. 

We don't get family photos very often, so this seems like a pretty good time to snap one. This is the best one we could get, and I think it's pretty great. 

We had a wonderful weekend of being with family, friends, and celebrating my brother! He will be heading to college in just a few short months and it was so nice to spend some time with him.  

around here

1-2.He came home and didn't even want to take his harness off. That was a first. 2. Valentine's Day gifts for my guy. He wanted to go see The Lego Movie, so off we went on Sunday. 3-4. Chilly morning snuggles in Kyle's robe. 5. It looks like I robbed the Young Adult section of a bookstore. I promise I didn't. 6. Still too cold to swim, but it is getting there! I feel it.

Honey Whiskey Sours

I have never been a whiskey girl. If it isn't sweet, I don't drink it. Whiskey has always just tasted a little too boozy for me so I stayed away from it. So when I mentioned to Kyle that I wanted to try to substitute honey whiskey he was all for it. My guy loves a good whiskey sour.  

The weather was warmer this weekend so I decided to make a batch of our own sour mix.The bottled kind is fine, but it tastes very sugary and artificial. I prefer to get my sugar coma from something a little more cupcake-y. 

Sour mix could not be any simpler to make. This makes a large container. 

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup lemon

1 cup lime

I stirred the sugar and water together until the sugar dissolved. Then I added the lemon and lime. That's it!

I added two ounces of honey whiskey and four ounces of our sour mix. It is fun and simple to make! 

 We spent the rest of the day outside with the pups and family. It is almost time to get back outside and in our pool! Almost is a little too strong a word considering we are being hit by another cold front, but we savor those nice sunny weekend days while we have them. 

 

Easy photo wall

I have seen photo walls everywhere lately. On pinterest, on instagram, and on some of my favorite blogs too. So I did some research to find out what was the best and most cost effective way to print instagram pictures from my phone. It just seemed a little difficult to take my photos and crop them down and print at home. I found an app called Printicular. This app is my new best friend. I tried a couple different ones before landing on this one, and I have to say... this is the easiest and quickest to use.

This app uses Walgreens to print. You can choose to pick them up in store or have them delivered to you.You can also choose where you want your pictures from. The options are Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, and even Google Plus. When you click on your option it will ask you to login and then you just pick the pictures you want to print. That is it! I printed 45 pictures for roughly 9 dollars (check out their twitter, it occassionally has discount codes). It was a great deal compared to some other companies that I also looked at.

 

All I did was lay out my photos to decide how I wanted the photo collage to look and then used double sided adhesive tape to stick it to me walls. It is easy to remove in the event that I want to switch out my photos. I didn't want a perfect look, so I did not measure. I am the type of person that just wings it. 

 

If you have done something similar, or end up doing this project. I would love to see them. Leave a link in the comments. 

Fall all around

On Saturday I had a fall party for our friends and family, so I got the chance to decorate a whole day early! Lucky me.  I don't buy pieces for a certain season. I just can't break down and do it, so I usually have a standard piece that I am able to switch out to match the occassion. For example the round bowl has different things in it throughout the year. It just depends on how I feel, and I like to keep my house that way. I can't imagine myself pulling out the same decorations year in and year out, so I don't like to spend much on things I may not have next year. Or may not love next year.

I borrowed the decorative pumpkins from my mother in law for our outdoor table. The little white guy I found at the local market. I couldn't resist, they were so cute. The large pumpkins out right now in stores are just not pretty, I will give them a couple more weeks. 

Our mantle is huge, we actually had our tv on it for almost a year until I decided I liked the mantle better as a focal point and less for entertainment purposes. So for now, there is a large print of me and Kyle as well as a big mirror, an oversized vase, and an owl carving that a very deal friend gave me. See any patterns? The mantle is large and so all of our decorations are too. (I will post about the large prints later on, they are so cheap to make!)

Fall is so fun, the colors are warm and cozy. The clothing is warm and cozy. The tea, hot chocalate or coffee are warm and cozy. Everything is warm and cozy. How can you not love it?

Happy First Day of Fall

Today officially starts the first day of my favorite time of the year. Here in Florida, we don't really have the changing of the seasons. You just wake up one morning and it is bone chilling cold (at least for us). Northerners out there don't judge that I think 50 is frigid cold.  So right now, we have cold mornings and blistering hot afternoons followed by breezy nights. It may not be the average fall for most of you, but I wouldn't have it any other way. So here's to the official start to fall (ours may not get here until early November). I hope you had a great weekend. We had a fall party on Saturday night to ring in the impending season. 

What is your favorite time of the year?

On the home front

This summer we have worked really hard to get our house where we want it to be. Of course, it will never be perfect. Or really ever clean enough, but it is ours. When we first became homeowners, it just seemed to be too much for just the two of us to tackle. Life always got in the way, or more like we were lazy.

I had a minor breakdown this summer and finally just said I can't take it, we have got to get our crap together. So after a couple weekends of hard work and getting back on track, we are finally able to enjoy our pool and even our patio for the first time since we moved in (two years ago). I feel like we have accomplished so much this summer, but my to do list is still a mile long. I will finish that pesky to do list...eventually. 

 

When I was old enough to move out, my parents gave me their record player. We have always had a place for it until we moved into this house. So I took our dresser and drilled holes in the back for the cords. The record player now fits perfect inside, and we can hide it when we aren't using it! 

Just a little peek into some pieces that make up our home. 

1. Bedroom dresser decorations. 2. Entry way to our house. 3. Purse holders are awesome, but I need to remember that it is not a purse graveyard. Move your purses lady. 4. Breaking out the fall decorations. 5. Our hoosier turned inside bar. 

Back to the basics

Getting back to the basics can be very hard. Sometimes intimidating, and almost all of the time frustrating. It seems to be human nature to want the next best thing. The newest, the biggest, the best of everything. But when is it too much? 

I am 100% guilty of wanting beautiful things, of feeling a need to have new things. It is completely natural to want to better yourself. But the items I have do not define me. It is time to get back to the basics. To throw everything out and start over. Start fresh with only those items that I truly love and feel are necessary for my small family. This week I am filling garbage bags with just "things" that have been sitting around for years. I am the type of person who wants to keep everything, just waiting until that day that I can pull it out and find something to use it for. I want to start filling this life with pieces that mean something to me. That have a special memory or story attached to it. Those are the things I want around our home. 

Does anyone else ever feel like it is time for an overhaul?