The One About The Wedding

When I get married, remind me that I want it to look like this. Aren't they gorgeous? Also, remind me to hire their photographer.

The One With An Amazing Wardrobe

I have discovered this new wonderful site called Polyvore, so I'm passing this invaluable information onto you. This site allows you to go through their insane wardrobe and build yourself outfits. You can also pull things from other sites and store them in your account. Best of all you can imbed them in things like - oh I don't know, a blog, and the information about your outfit is available to whoever is reading the post.

Example: I have to go to a wedding in a week, and I want something fabulous to wear. In Polyvore I am a billionaire and can afford to buy $1,000 bubblegum pink Christian Louboutins. In real life I'll wear something I already own or raid a friend's closet.

In Polyvore, I'll show up in this (and have a ridiculous body to go in it).

So go play, have fun...I'll be on the lake.

The One About Gardens and Guns

via Garden and Gun

There is this amazing magazine floating around the South. My dad found it via some fellow magazine industry people, and now it appears at our house once a month. For $17.97 you can get a subscription (and I think you should) but for FREE, you can be a member of the site and receive their newsletter every once in awhile.

The magazine in the flesh is really the best part. It contains beautiful photography, is made out of really heavy wonderful paper, and the articles are legitimately interesting. But, for FREE you can get a newsletter in your Gmail. I received mine this afternoon and the article it contained was this.

For the very tiny price of $6,000 - you can make an entire barrel of your personal wine at Vint Hill Craft Winery near Washington, D.C. Apparently a barrel of wine is about the same as 300 bottles, so that works out to about $20 a bottle. In case you're interested, the article has all of the contact information for the winery. Anyone out there NOT have $6,000 to blow on personalized wine? I think it sounds like a pretty smart investment.

Right?

The One About Cabin Fever

My dad works for a company the publishes magazines, most of which are about homes. Our house has always been covered in them, and I usually flip through but rarely do I actually read an article or pay any real attention. Maybe it's because I just moved into an apartment, I don't know - but this house is beautiful. It's designed by Bill Ingram who is from Birmingham. The house is on Lake Martin and is really more of a house on a lake than a lake house - but who knows if that just made any sense. Without further ado - I present to you, my dream vacation home (minus the bedding in the bedroom, I don't know - it's just not me).

via Southern Accents

For future reference - this is a little more "lake house" and a little less "house on a lake." This is Bill Ingram's first house of Lake Martin, he apparently felt the need for a MAJOR upgrade.

via Cottage Living

The One Where I Plan For Retirement

I officially set up my 401k. I will officially be spending a large percentage of my paycheck every two weeks on my retirement. REALLY? I know I'll be happy about it in the years to come, when I'm old and wrinkly but I'm seriously going to miss that money every month. BOO. I just thought y'all might get a laugh out of that...let's hope that I don't totally screw it up and invest in something really dumb - like Asia - cause don't worry, that's on the funds list from my 401k people. I just invested in a whole continent, and some really delicious food. Sake anyone?

The One With The Fun Dinner Party

The BF's sweet brother and sister-in-law had us over for dinner Saturday night. They just bought a brand new house and it's adorable! They've gotten so much done it's really just ridiculous. This was officially the first outings sans the BF's parentals so that was new and fun! We had lots of girl time (I'm assuming the boy's had boy time but I didn't participate) and eventually headed home to SLEEP.

The SIL is going to learn to sew with me which I am super excited about - how useful would it be if you could make your own cute pillows and things? I figure it'll save money too, curtains and pillows and things are EXPENSIVE! She's also much more domestic than me and has learned to smock little kids clothes, which she promises to teach me, but I might hold out on that (at least until my married friends have babies...I'm waiting on Wiley's future sister.) BUT, the pillows and things I can handle.

I've officially decided that my first project should be simple so I think I'm going to try to do a tshirt quilt. I have a million tshirts and since I'm a crazy packrat I don't want to give them away - sooo, tshirt quilt here I come. It doesn't seem that hard, just sewing together some pieces of fabric right? Probably just need a little practice - I figure sewing a million pieces of fabric together will be GOOD practice, I'll probably be a sewing genius after that!!

Anyone know anything about sewing machines? Are there good ones and bad ones? Where do you buy them? OH CONFUSING.

Am I going to look like this woman?

The One With My Dream Life

In my future life I will have gobs of money and a mind reader with amazing taste to decorate for me. It's going to be gorgeous, perfect and require very little effort on my part. I could live in this house tomorrow. Oh My Gosh. Since moving into an apartment (with rent I pay on my own) I've become seriously jealous of people with amazingly perfect homes. Mine consists of a few special things, hand-me-downs and everything I bought 3 years ago for college. One day I'll get to go pick things out for myself...

I know someone came and made this table look fabulous, I also know that I could do this. That is what I want for my little apartment now, and my little house in the future, to be classic, simple, approachable, warm...insert other adjectives here.

I know, for sure, that whoever lives here has the greatest parties, the most interesting friends, and a personal chef. For this table you'd have to have amazing crab cakes or something.

The living room has such a wonderful crawl up and snuggle feeling. There isn't a (visible) TV, which I love in theory but would hate in real life. The sofas are neutral but yellow and green pops out and makes the room seem fresh and happy. The designer put this in the "beach house" category, seriously? Who can afford to make a beach house look like this? I guess people who end up in magazines.

PLUS. After you sit in your den, and before you eat your fabulous dinner, you have this lovely kitchen to work in. I mean, let's be honest, I would never need anything this fabulous because I barely know how to cook bacon without the help of the BF but how wonderful would it be to sit in this kitchen while SOMEONE ELSE made me dinner? I might even offer to do the dishes...or not.