The One About Babysitting

This weekend I'm spending it with my 10-year-old cousin, Kathleen. Apparently she's going to spend all day Saturday running around the neighborhood playing with friends and I'm going to catch up on my reading, a little bit of work, and I might even transfer my entire home iTunes library to my work iTunes. How does that sound?

I was trying to come up with some fun things to at least OFFER to take her to do, but I'm not even sure what would be fun for her. I guess maybe we'll run all of that down tonight. You never know, maybe she'll actually want to hang out with me some??

It's gotten beyond cold in the last couple of days...mittens, scarfs and constant shivering cold...but last week the universe gave us a teeny tiny glimpse of what it would feel like to put on this, and not want to constantly be wrapped up in wool and a parka. Wouldn't that be nice?

On a totally unrelated, and relatively obnoxious note (sorry). The people who live in my apartment and throw parties on weeknights are going to have to GO. Not only does that mean I can HEAR YOU, but YOU'RE TAKING UP ALL OF THE PARKING SPOTS. Last night I parked on the curb, right next to the trashcans. People sometimes do this, and it's not a huge deal, EXCEPT last night THREE of us had to do that...so I'm sure people were using some mighty nice words when trying to slither there way out of the driveway...past the rear end of my car. OOPS. Not my fault. Take it up with the 30 or so people that were banging (probably, but that might have just been the music) on the wall of my apartment in the middle of last night.

** That YSL is the best mascara on the planet. It's all a friend of mine in school wore, and I LOVE IT. Too bad its more expensive than my current choice...which I picked up at Target.

The One About Lunch

So - I gave up eating out for lunch during Lent. I like this plan. Hopefully it's going to make me eat a smidge healthier, and I'm 90% sure it's going to keep money from hemorrhaging out of my bank account. Let's say I spent $8 on lunch everyday, and I eat out 5 days a week (all of the work days)...then I've spent $40 a week, and $160 a month eating mainly fast food in Inverness, AL. That's nauseating. Monday I went to Target and loaded up on food for my office. We have a full blown kitchen so I could cook whatever I wanted to but I figured I would stick to the basics. I bought bread, mustard, turkey, cheese, PB&J, and apples for lunch - plus - yogurt, Special K bars, Pop-Tarts and English muffins for breakfast. I'm 100% sure I'm going to miss Chick-fil-A (or maybe Tazikis) the most, but so far so good.

I've maintained good self control for 5 whole working days...hm. Tomorrow, for my JOB, I'm going to have to skip over my self-imposed hibernation during lunch and venture out to eat. A girl in my office is leaving her job so we'll be having lunch as a big group. Oops.

On another note...I've started attending a Bible study focuses on the book of John. The guy teaching is WAY smarter than me, but it's interesting.

AND, have y'all seen this today? Remember when I was talking about making myself one of these? I like how this girl did three different ones and hung them together. How cute is that!?

Anything fun going on in your life? I'm swamped at work which is fun and terrifying all at the same time. Not only are we overly busy - but this girl who is leaving? Yeah...her work has to go somewhere, and there it is...on my desk. I'm so pumped about getting to do a lot of new things and MORE things, but did I mention terrifying?

This weekend I'm babysitting for my cousin while my aunt and uncle visit her brother in Athens. I am looking forward to a desperately needed weekend of relaxation, early to bed and getting in a few chapters of the books I haven't been reading. I'm sure she'll have 8 different 10-year-old sporting events.

The One About Curtains

Remember back a million billion years ago when I said I would show y'all what my apartment looks like? Oops. That might still happen...but for now, I can show you what my curtains look like without putting forth any real effort myself. I know, I know, you're very welcome! HA.

This post on Little Green Notebook highlights Ralph Lauren paint (which will be discontinued at Home Depot - in case you're curious or want to go buy it at 50% off) and some rooms that use RL colors.

Scroll down to the orange and brown bedroom.

Those are my curtains! Aren't they wonderful? They're MASSIVE, and we just tuck them under on our very tall ceilings (who knows what I'll do with shorter ceilings). Don't worry...just the window drapes, not the orange-trimmed canopy - there is no orange in my living room.

So...there you go. Now, I'll get back to planning a time to take pictures of where they actually live now.

The One For Saints

This weekend I plan on doing pretty much nothing.

I MIGHT do a little bit of research on a new project for the kitchen. After thinking over this idea, and even purchasing some frames, I've decided that not only will this project end up costing more than I'm really willing to spend - but it's not going to look exactly the way I want it to.

This seems like so much more fun - and an easy one afternoon project. MAYBE the roommate and I will work on that at some point this weekend.

I'm definitely going to work on my big pile of books - and the list of Netflix instant movies I have stored up. I'm going to attempt to wear my pajamas for most of the weekend, AND I might even post some circus pictures. Wouldn't that be good?

I'm probably going to cook up something yummy to take to a Super Bowl party I'm planning on going to with a very good friend. His whole family is from New Orleans so I'm probably going to avoid anything remotely NOLA-ish and just make something celebratory (or sugary).

Something like this? That's a variation on black and gold, right? Or sugar cookies with icing might be cute too. I guess it depends on what I'm actually in the mood for.

And I'm going to have to pull together a Saint-related outfit for the occasion. I really wanted a jersey because that's so much easier to throw on, but those are EXPENSIVE. I had no idea. Instead I'm thinking about this...

...a variation that exists in my closet, so I'll have on jeans, my black blazer and a yellow scarf.

What are y'all up to this weekend?

The One About My Week

This week I've been very productive...

I went to the grocery store which resulted in a huge amount of stuff to carry up my apartment steps, and some very delicious gumbo. See? I really did make it. It was pretty delicious if I do say so myself. A few of my friends came over to partake and I still have leftovers. I think it would be equally delicious with shrimp too, but you might need to add that later in the cooking process.

Also, a girl who works with my mom offered us FREE tickets to the circus, so that's a good $13 I didn't have to spend on seeing the elephants. Wow, $13 is almost $15, which is how much I spent on this guy. Coincidence?

This weekend my to-do list is already growing.

I have frames that I found on clearance at Target for this project. They were $8.50 and my roommate is going to go grab some fun fabric. The frames are very very simple, and a dark wood color. I've been contemplating how much I want them to be silver - a little spray paint might be in order.

I'm also signing up at the YMCA this weekend, and I'm going to start my exercising resolution. I don't want to hear about how it's almost February. I know. I figure as long as I get it down pat before bathing suit season rolls around I'm good to go. By the way...bathing suits are already out at Target. PUT THEM BACK.

I'm also going to try to cook something else in the crock-pot. I want to try something a little less soup-like, so I'm thinking one of these. Any votes?

Beer Beef Fajitas sound delicious. Slow Cooked Potatoes with Butter and Thyme which would be yummy with a piece of grilled chicken. I have frozen chicken breasts in my freezer, so it would be nice to eat one of those this weekend. I could also do dessert, which would be pretty interesting. Slow Cooked Winter Bread Pudding with Dried Pears. Or I could try a simple chicken dish that might result in leftovers. I LOVE leftovers. Garlic-Rosemary Chicken Breast, Spicy Shredded Beef, Pulled Pork Tacos, and Sweet-n-Sour Turkey Meatballs all sound good too.

What are y'alls thoughts?

The One About Our Kitchen

The roommate and I are trying to figure out something fun to do (inexpensively) that would liven up our kitchen a little bit. We've run through everything from painting (thank you to me for choosing the most time-consuming, least practical idea), to blowing up photographs, to buying one of those giant pieces of "art" from Home Goods and hanging it on the wall.

Our problem is really many-fold. Our walls are plaster and therefore IMPOSSIBLE to hang things on. It can happen, but it involves a strong guy, an even stronger drill and a little prayer that pieces of my wall aren't going to come crumbling off. Also, our kitchen is really dark - so we're definitely looking for something fun, but not too overpowering. And our kitchen is also our laundry room...which means the wall in question is a really large blank space that spans over the toaster oven/island situation, the stove and the dryer. We're not looking for anything that we'd be upset if it happened to get steamy, or rattled right off the wall.

I want to do something really simple and graphic - probably in a group. I've seen a few things I like around the internet, but I think I have a better idea. And no...I'm not going to try to paint something myself.

I absolutely LOVE these, but at almost $60 a pop, that's a little more than I wanted to spend.

So...I think my roommate and I both like something like this.


It's definitely basic, and costs a LOT more than we're really thinking we're going to spend...but don't you think I could recreate this? Not only do I think I could paint these pretty easily with some good brushes and a roll of painters tape...but - my roommate had an even better, and simpler idea. How about simple frames (black, silver, etc.) with mats, and using some spray mount...woudn't it be so simple to paste pieces of fabric inside the frames? It would probably take all of an hour (if I'm slow) and we'd wind up with something pretty, useful, simple and not so pricey. I think I'm going to give it a shot this weekend and see how it goes. I guess the first stop is the fabric store...if I can't find anything I like, I'll be hard pressed to make it look good in the end. What are your thoughts?

Doesn't this look so simple and happy!? We need a little happy in our kitchen. Our kitchen is dull and white.

Also, on a totally different note. I'm looking for some antique bottles. Does anyone know where you go to pick those up?

And click on that first image to go purchase these for yourself...if you lucky enough to have a great place to put them and a few extra dollar bills y'all lying around.

The One About My Inherent Craftiness (PT. II)

Guess what!? I finally finished one of my projects...and they looks so pretty. Remember when I was talking about getting some Christmas decorations together...well, I completed this one. And I bought a fake tree (with ornaments), and I have some packages to wrap up and put underneath is. My apartment definitely has a festive sort of feel. Now, if I could only find those dang white lights I want...apparently everywhere in Birmingham is sold out of the classic kind - and I do NOT do icicle lights.

I started with these supplies:

red satin ribbon I bought a roll of this at Hobby Lobby but I wish I had bought by the yard somewhere else, it turned out to be not be very high-quality, but I couldn't tell in the packaging.

styrafoam ball remember that adding the walnuts will add about 2 inches to the size of the ball on all sides, so you can choose a smaller one that what you would want the final product to be.

screw eye I chose a larger on so that the ribbon wouldn't be scrunched together at the top, and spraying it along with the ball blends it in to the final product.

floral wire I bought this because Martha told me to - you don't need it. If you can figure out how to tie a bow on that screw eye, all by yourself, without having weird wire holding it in place - then you're good to go.

gold spray paint just remember - shinier is better. A matte finish will not work as well.

I also needed a hot glue gun, and the glue to go with it - but that was simple. I had the gun and I just bought a new package of glue (you're going to use a lot of it).

The first step is to spray the ball with gold paint, and screw in the screw eye. This part is incredibly easy, the only difficult part was finding a place to let them dry. I had some leftover ribbon from Halloween that I didn't need anymore, so I tied them to a coat hanger with that. Then I hung the coat hanger from the kitchen cabinet knob, and swung the door out past the counter. Voila.

Trying to get the walnuts to lay next to each other, without holes is nearly impossible - which is the reason for spraying the ball first. Spray paint tends to soak into the ball so you won't get a very solid cover - but it makes a slight difference. In the end, no one is going to notice because the walnuts get a great coat and look all shiny and festive.

A note on the walnuts - it takes a much larger amount of walnuts to cover these balls that I anticipated. I bought five bags to cover these three balls, and ended up needing to run back to the store for another three.


See?

Then you just have to tie the bow to the screw eye, and loop more ribbon through it to hang. I hung mine from the curtain rod which was very simple, but you could use a nail too (or another screw eye).

And there is the final product (and a bit of my apartment). Trust me, if I can make this work, so can you. I vaguely wish they were a little bit bigger, but that would have just cost more money, so I'll live with these. Maybe next year I'll make two more and have a larger grouping.

My mom also suggested using this same idea on a styrafoam wreath which I thought would be pretty.

** Trust me - that last picture is bothering me more than it is you. I needed to close those blinds, get some better lighting, move the remote, fluff the pillow and that middle ribbon isn't even. Oh well, I'll try to retake it but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

The One About My Inherent Craftiness

Holidays always make me feel a little bit crafty (despite my general inability to finish things in time, and the fact that my projects very rarely turn out the way they were planned). For Halloween I tried to hang a garland of letters spelling Happy Halloween over the giant window in my living room - the result was a LOT of orange ribbon holding up each letter, loads of glitter to be swiffered up and a garland that didn't even look all that great - the letters were flipping over to the ugly, not fully painted side. Oh, and there may or may not be some leftover black spray paint residue in the hallway of my apartment building, but shh - don't tell. Then this misfit of a garland stayed hung until, well - until Sunday. Fail.

But - this holiday season I am going to do better.

First and foremost, we're getting a tree. My roommate is allergic, so it's going to be a fake tree, but it'll be a tree - with pretty white lights, and ornaments and sparkle and presents underneath.

We're going to have a real-life evergreen wreath (with the perfect red bow) on the OUTSIDE door but on the inside I'm planning on making this little pretty (candy fix). Wouldn't it be so cute with peppermints? I also thought about this one (only big enough to hang in the center of the door)...I'm still working on the color scheme. Originally I was planning on all silver and white and happiness, but recently I've been leaning more towards the typical red and green - festive and fun. I'm young right - my Christmas decorations can be cute, they don't have to be pretty.

Also, I saw this from Martha, and it seems pretty simple. Does that work with the red and green theme? I want it too but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it as much if it wasn't covered in 24k gold. Maybe I'll switch out the bow for red...that would work right? I have a massive window in my living room, I thought three of these (one in each window) would look really pretty.

I'm also considering making some of my own ornaments - I have none of my own, and I would like to have a full Christmas tree. Places like Home Depot and Target sell mass quantities of red, silver and gold balls (pretty blah if you ask me) but I think I could use those and then punch it up with some fun handmade things. Kind of like this and this. Seriously people - where does Martha come up with these things?

Oh, and I'm going to need stockings - and holders. I really like these from Target, but unfortunately there are just two of us in my apartment. I guess I could just hold on to the others - I think they're really cute and they're inexpensive. And then there are these...which I absolutely ADORE, and because I want them they are "no longer available." Maybe they have them in the store. I guess I could take a trip to The Summit to check it out....

What are y'all doing to decorate for Christmas? I need some good suggestions for my very first real-life apartment and my very first Christmas not living at my parents - oh, and my very first real-life Christmas party.

I guess that means I'll have to do something with the table...and there will be food involved. Aren't you looking forward to a completely holiday-inspired December around here. Eventually I'll get to the point where I can't talk about anything else and you'll love it. Have I already gotten there?

The One About Work

I'm exhausted.

Work is killing me. Long story short - our client moved the deadline for our proposal up from April to December 9th. HUH? I literally feel like a work-a-holic. Am I a work-a-holic?

But other than that...

So You Think You Can Dance is the bomb this year, and I love Cat Deeley.

My little sister is turning 21 on Saturday, and then my best friend turns 23 on Tuesday - and I'm old.

I'm still trying to find the time to take down our Halloween decorations (say goodbye to the glitter skulls) and go shopping for winter. I'm into sequins lately, so I'm pretty sure we're going to go with a silver and white theme. Sparkles, sparkles and more sparkles.

We've started planning our first ever grown-up Christmas party.

My Christmas list is growning, and when you're living on your own for the first time and trying not to be broke at all times the list is a little depressing. So far the things I've come up with are a set of sheets so that I don't have to wash/dry and remake my bed all in the same day, and to have my parents pay to have my hair colored. DEPRESSING.

Anyway, that's about it for life right now.

It's finally starting to get cold around here - it was in the 70s this weekend, so I might actually have to break out my winter coat soon. That's good!

The One About My Closet

I spent this weekend switching out my summer clothes for yummy, cozy, sweaters and only hit one snag. Well, two really. I thought I had lost my tights and had a small panic moment. These are not regular tights, and they're not regularly priced. BUT, if you drop the money on these babies you will understand that these are the WORLD'S BEST tights. Ever. In the history of the universe. Needless to say, I was stressed about having to replace them.

The other snag is this: I have unpacked everything, and I am missing a box. The most frustrating thing is that I know what is in it. There's a purple dress, some tan tweed pants, I'm pretty sure there are a pair of brown cropped pants...and that just makes me wonder what else is there. It's a whole box. There must be some dresses somewhere...

It's the most frustrating thing in the whole universe.

The One With Frames

I bought a few pieces of art this weekend (you'll see those as soon as I get around to documenting my apartment), and I'm hoping y'all (many millions of readers) can help me with something.

I bought a set - two tiny little pieces that are framed in 2x2 frames. Giant frames, giant mats, and I love the way they look. The other piece is larger, and I love the size of the frame - but it's a little pale. It doesn't help the art stand out on the wall - which is the point of buying art (right?).

Question: does anyone know an inexpensive, high-quality place to have something framed? Any thoughts on what I can expect price-wise?

The One About Lonny

Lonny Magazine officially debuted - and it's WONDERFUL. Not only does it have great things in it, but many of those great things link to the web, and the great things go on for days (or pages...195 of them to be exact). There are a few advertising pages, but they're limited, and what does appear in these pages is relevant to the reader. They're created one feature that spans 35 pages! Here's a little glance, but you can check out the whole magazine right here, or head over to Michelle Adams' blog (who launched Lonny with business partner Patrick Cline).

A few of the contributors and focuses of the features in Lonny are a result of the slow (or not so slow) death of print magazines. Both Kate Townsend-Simpson and Deborah Needleman's homes are featured in Lonny, and they worked as an editor, and Editor-in-Chief of domino respectively - before that magazine was shuttered. It has the distinct feeling of being a heart-felt, and hard-won collaboration beginning and ending with those who love shelter magazines, and the magazine format in general.

Simpson's Dining Room

Needleman's Dressing Area

The fact that you can literally shop right out of the magazine makes a HUGE impact as well. If you scroll over something you like, a box pops up, and links to the source. So convenient for readers...even better for the products featured. It's like the world's best, and most well-designed advertising.

For instance, Simpson's bathroom features these beautifully monogrammed hand towels...if you scroll over them you will see that you can have them too - from Leontine Linens, and if you want the wallpaper, well it's Waverly Light Foot Mural Document. Easy enough for buyers to get sucked in...

The magazine features everything from interiors (the obvious focus) to clothing and lifestyle. There is the inevitable feature on "going green," and the topic of trends (both fashion and interior) - such as "Ivy League" and "Spotted" make it light and fun. The magazine features everything from refurbished, antique typewriters, to easy, inexpensive ways to spruce up your home. Lonny even suggests using shoe rack to house beautiful shoes in the open - "turn your storage into unique stylish displays." Interesting...

Lonny features great ideas that stand alone, but also feature the ideas of influential people in the design business. Eddie Ross for instance. Previously seen on HGTV's Next Design Star - he has an easy style that is compiled of a few expensive investment pieces and classic, personal finds at flea markets.

Eddie Ross' display of china, glassware and silver pieces

The magazine also provides a great collection of "5 Tips For..." throughout. They come from the editor, featured designers, and contributors to the magazine. Eddie Ross provides his "5 Tips For Entertaining with Style," which makes perfect sense while reading the article focusing on his beautiful home. It's the best way to intergrate "amazingly put together, could never do it alone" inspiration from incredible designers, with "easy to accomplish for us everyday humans" information.

In general, this magazine provides an amazing amount of information and inspiration (for those people who have the money to redecorate anything), and it's jam-packed with resources. All in all, it a great response to all of the magazines that have closed in the last little bit - Southern Accents, Cottage Living, domino. This offers the same caliber of work - but it's less expensive to create (and less expensive to read - i.e. FREE). My one and only complaint for the editors is that someone should have been less worried about how the magazine looked and felt, and more worried about typos. Oh well - I'm sure they'll have that down-pat next go-around.

The One Where I Find It

Look!

This would look pretty perfect in my little reading nook - and guess what? It's only $249 + $29 for an extra slipcover...just in case my pristine white original gets a little messy. I think I've officially found a good reason to give up my in-bedroom TV, and I've always wanted a swing-arm task lamp!

The One About My TV

I have a big, pretty TV in our living room, but I keep another TV in the bedroom. This TV has a teeny-tiny screen, which apparently is good at concealing its rather large bum. It's really a monster in disguise. I need something for the TV to sit on, but I still want it to look good in my room. Right now we're working with this horror.

My problem is two-fold.

I have no money, and space is limited. I have a large cabinet on the same wall so ideally, this TV stand will carry no weight at all. I really don't want to even see it.

Unfortunately - an ugly plastic rolling cart is hard to miss.

So I've come up with a few options...

I've contemplated getting another one of these shelving units - just this time, in the 2x2 size...but those are pretty bulky. The advantage is that I would have one more place to put picture frames and books. More storage is always good.

This might work - but I would have to measure. I have two side tables that look fairly similar to this but are better looking. I wouldn't want to repeat that type of thing in another area of the room. Plus, I'm not a HUGE lover of the folded leaf - I think the fact that it was always down might annoy me.

I have no idea! I need help - professional help, but since I'm looking to spend about $100 (or A LOT less) on this thing...there probably aren't a lot of interior designers our there ready to help me.

Maybe I just need to scratch this idea entirely and use this lovely corner for something like this or this...or maybe even this. I would LOVE to have a little reading nook. I could put something like this behind the chair and be perfectly happy.

Especially since my brother never did build me that radiator cover.

On a completely separate note - I could just do this, hang it on the wall, and not worry about the TV having a place to sit.

Do y'all have any thoughts?

The One About My Project

I'm a pack rat.

In my defense, this only affects a few, very important things.

I save all of my t-shirts. Every single one. My roommate can attest, because there are three giant boxes in the top of our storage closet that contain shirts from college, high school, before high school. They're in the top of my storage area - so obviously I don't wear them. Why are they still hanging around? I'm convinced one day I will need them (want them) for something and then I will be really sad that I let them all go. I'm aware that this is irrational.

I also have MASSIVE binders filled with recipes from magazines we get at the office. We work for a food company so we have loads of food magazines. One summer, before I was working here full time, I was in charge of cleaning out our library and chucking all the magazines printed before 'X' date (classic intern assignment, right?). Well - it's against my nature to chuck things without knowing what they are, so I took them all home, pulled the recipes out that I wanted, and THEN recycled all the now almost empty magazines. Now those recipes are in sleeve protectors, in binders, in my apartment. I've convinced myself that one day I'm going to organize them all and suddenly become Giada.

Doubtful.

And it's fairly obvious that I have a large collection of books.

My current obsession? I want a cork board. NOT a board made out of prefab cork, a bulletin board made out of CORKS...from wine. I worked it all out and I need about 1,600 to make the cork board that I want. I want it to be the width of one side of my desk, and very tall.

In my room there is already a large collection of frames above my bed, and my desk sits on the same wall. I don't want anything else hanging on the wall so my solution is to build a bulletin board that could fit on the wall to the right and be exactly the right width for my desk, about 26 inches - or 28 corks. Now, if I want this cork board to be 28 corks wide, and a little more than double that height - 56 corks high....then I need 1,568 corks. That's a lot of wine.

You can buy similar cork boards from really cool stores like SkyMall - but they are much much smaller than what I am looking for and VERY expensive compared to how much it costs to buy the corks themselves costs. Plus - if I make it myself, then I can pick exactly how big I want the board to be.

So...now I'm moving on to making it myself.

At the Widget Manufacturing Co. you can buy used (because they have to be used) wine corks, they've just adjusted the price based on how many you are purchasing. For my little project it would cost $128 in corks alone - that's still pretty pricey.

There are a few people who are selling them on Ebay. Here, here and here. They have groups of anywhere from 20 corks to 1,700+. The 1,700 corks only costs $85, so at least thats less than on Widget.

Is it bad to buy the corks?

Should I just be saving up mine so that the bulletin board is meaningful? Does it matter if my bulletin board is meaningful? Should I just get a plain one and wrap it in fabric?

How long would it take me to save up $1,600 corks? Even if I drank a bottle of wine a day which is not happening it would take me close to 5 years to save up that many corks.

Oh, the conundrum.

The One About Cable

So far this morning I have...

Locked myself out of my Charter account
Had someone reset my Charter account
Call and get my bill lowered
**because they tried to charge me for the time they came to my apartment to fix the internet - which, because of Charter, was not working.
Try to login to pay my lowered bill
Somehow lock myself out of my Charter account AGAIN
Get my Charter account reset AGAIN
Login to see that my bill has not in fact been lowered, and is still ridiculously expensive
"Chat" with a Charter helper to get this fixed
Had the Charter man, Edmar, try to make me pay the higher rate AGAIN
Explain to Edmar that I am not paying $35 for Charter to fix my Charter internet which did not function properly
Listen to Edmar get all confused about whether I should pay the higher bill now and receive a credit, or pay the lowered amount
Edmar requests I fill out a survey

The End.

The One With The Colorful Books

If you ever read this blog then you know that I really really like to read. Not only do I like to read but I also just like books in general. It's pretty obvious I get that from my parents...they have piles and piles (I mean piles literally) of books in our house. Most of those piles were actually piles of boxes up until recently. Lucky for me, I have loads of shelves in the living room of my apartment, and they're pretty full - but they still look pretty unorganized. At least unorganized compared to these.


I've seen this done all over the internet recently and I'm sure those people didn't go out and buy colored books for the occasion (although...maybe they did), but I am not. The only thing that I don't like about this is the temptation to remove the jacket. I'm thinking of giving it a try though. The shelves I have are all black so I think the juxtaposition of color would be pretty cool in our sparse little living room. It would also be good to add some visual interest (other than our curtains) in the space. Speaking of - maybe I should post some pictures of my apartment, I guess a few of you haven't actually seen it in real person. So far we don't have much on the walls and our furniture is pretty neutral, naturally. I'm planning on having a poster framed soon though! Ah...a little inexpensive artwork never hurt anyone. PLUS - it would (hopefully) be a big change, and I wouldn't have spent any money on it! I'm going to try to get that together this weekend...although so far this one is turning out to be pretty jam-packed.

STOP. Can't start thinking about the weekend yet...

The One With The Sofa

disclaimer: This is not my sofa (sadly)

Our apartment is officially being graced with the presence of a SOFA on Wednesday. My roommate bought one from a woman who was replacing hers and we had to wait for the new one to arrive. BUT, it's coming on Wednesday - finally, a place to sit comfortably while watching TV....just in time for the best show ever.

I hung pictures this weekend, and spent some time getting my room cleaned up - I finally feel like it's coming together, that's a relief! Mom even says the drapes might be done this week.

Friday night I ate with the fam and then wen't to sleep. That's all.

Saturday I laid in the pool, hung some pictures, went to my friend's house-warming party and Billy's to see 8th Street (our friends' band).

Sunday I slept until noon, laid in the pool, and had a yummy Mexican dinner. It was the perfect weekend.

**Dawson - I finally got to start The Help this weekend. After Blackbird, I wanted to read the sequel (Still Waters). BUT I am now halfway through The Help, and I CAN'T PUT IT DOWN...I'm pretty sure this one is going to go quickly. That kind of makes me sad, I hate when good books end.

The One About The Washer & Dryer

Last night my mom called me at midnight to inform me that she had found me a washer and dryer. It was on Craigslist, listed for $20 for the set, and needed to be picked up by noon today. WHAT? She said that the timer on the dryer didn't work and that the washer shook a lot but she didn't seem to think that was a big deal. I told her that if she wanted to buy it, get it to my apartment and up the stairs (I live in a 3 story walk-up) she could do it, and we would see if it would even work. I said hopefully it would, let me know how it goes, and thanks.

So - this morning the BF came to my apartment to meet the internet man while I went to work. Sweet boy has been at my apartment for 3 days straight trying to get the internet to work....but that's not the point. So, because he was there, I called my mom to find out the status of the washer-dryer situation in case they were going to be headed that way with giant appliances (aka to warn the BF to get the hell away from my apartment before he got enlisted into the crazy people moving service).

The status of the washer dryer? Dad vetoed. He told my mom she was nuts, no normal person would sell a washer and dryer for $20 if they were worth anything at all, and he was not driving to get them on the trailer and haul them into my apartment.

So that's where we stand. Thoughts on finding a cheap washer a dryer? I would LOVE the sweet baby blue energystar ones from Lowe's but somehow I don't think my parent's are going to spend $1,700 on my new washer and dryer. Aren't they pretty?

The One With The Cool Website

One of my good friends, Kirbie, is working out in L.A and she frequently posts on the blog of the business she is interning for. She works for Chic Events and so naturally their blog is called My Chic Life. Recently the blog highlighted a website called Velocity Art and Design that has - literally - thousands of things on it (useful and not) but prices that are sometimes close to within my budget (read...not crazily overpriced). The site includes art (some original, some prints), tabletop, fun and useless items, frames, etc. Not only are there a few things I would love to have in my not so beautifully furnished apartment, but because there are a million, varied things to look at, the site is fun to "window shop" too. It would be perfect for baby gifts, especially if the baby would love a glass piggy bank like the one above, or a birthday present, or just presents for me. They even have this ring that is also on the MOMA site, and I've been looking at it for a few YEARS now, that's a LONG time for me. Basically, the point is, if you want something fabulous for your apartment, or your friend, or yourself - this would be a great place to look! Your lucky if you're my friend because I already have a few things in mind...

Blue Wave by Amanda KavanaghGreeting cards for friend's birthdays (to go with their gift from Velocity)Forget Me Not ring