There and Back Again

It's been a week of exploration and discussion, new beginnings and old happenings... Each time I found myself wondering when, when will it change, when will it get easier, when will it become more natural, when will it stop repeating. I feel like a scratched disc, stuck on the same spot, unable to move past and doomed to repeat over and over and over again.

I pray that God will lift us both up and guide us beyond this "scratch". In the meantime, I pray that He will also bless us with the diligence, patience and understanding to work through it as a team. Thank you for putting up with me, even when I'm no fun to be around. I had a lot of fun with you this week partaking in all the hiking, sightseeing and furniture decisions. I wish at the end of the day we could come home and keep the joy going. One day I hope we'll learn to share more freely and happily.

I love you infinity mostest (me!) babe. I am commited to standing by your side for the rest of our lives and learning how to love you best.

~me

Gorgeous Poppies

One of my latest etsy obessions happens to be pottery. When we were registering just last year, I had yet to discover pottery. I was in love with china (still am) and we registered and received nearly all of our Kate Spade China. We registered for the kate spade union street and a mix match of Kate Spade St. Kitts Nags Head and Pinney Beach.








By the time the wedding gifts were pretty much done rolling in, we had 13 sets of the Union Street, plus additional pieces such as platters, serving bowls, salt and pepper shakers and pasta bowls. For the Nags Head and pinney beach, we ended up with 12 dinner plates, 12 dessert plates, 6 soup bowls, 6 cereal bowls, 6 appetizer plates, 12 fruit bowls, platters, serving bowls and who knows what else! The point of all this is, we got A LOT of china.

On the one hand, it was a good thing, between our two families alone, we've nearly maxed out the usuage of both sets. On the other hand, that's a whole lot of china to store! We picked out two (well really three, two sets are split 50-50) sets of china because we planned to use one as our everyday dinnerware, so it will be our "casual" china and the other is our "fine" china. The only reason we got two rather than one is because the kate spade is made of bone china-it's sturdy stuff, her casual line wasn't too expensive, it's dishwasher friendly and we couldn't find any other "everyday dishes" that we particularly liked! I love that the patterns mix well so together and are simple enough that it's easy to coordinate with other pieces.

Many years ago, my grandmother taught me that you really one need one base set of fine china, after that, you just buy chargers and salad plates in other patterns for whenever you want to "mix it up". When she was growing up, it wasn't uncommon to have christmas china, easter china and other special occasion sets as well. Pieces were treasured back then and passed from generation to generation. Not quite so much these days. I loved the idea of buying salad plates in other patterns though, and layering it with our china for special occasions. This is one of the reasons why we bought a more simple pattern. What really sold us was that my husband loved it and I am a total sucker for anything black, white and platinum!


Why do I mention all this? Well, while I'm still in love with our china, I've become enamoured with pottery. Meet my new love: Whitney Smith Pottery! Her poppy bowls and plates are gorgeous!













Above are photos of all the pieces that I am hoping to get! I'd love to get a poppy bowl in each of the colors, red, yellow and purple, as well as the platters. I couldn't find any photos of her purple platter but I intend to get one of those as well! All of the photos are either from her etsy site or her web site! I've seen some of the poppy bowls placed on top of the leaf platters which was adorable too! Her pieces are quite expensive for our current budget but I'm really hoping to afford some down the line! I think they would look amazing displayed in our new home. I'm planning to display them (when we can afford to get them!) mixed in with my milk glass vase collection. The milky white with the pops of colors will look amazing!

Anyone else have any other favorites? All her work is incredible!

Master Bedroom Design

So this is the design concept that I have come up with for the bedroom:

New Master by LifeAccounts on Polyvore.com

For wall colors, I'm torn between a natural look with a light tan (behind the shelving & medallions in photo), or doing a dusty blue similar to the curtains.

The curtains, I love both the damask and blue so I'm going to try and find a way to work both in, though if we paint the walls the blue color, we'd just use the damask.

I couldn't really find a lamp that I really liked on the internet so I have a feeling I'm going to have to do some shopping around for awhile. I was thinking a silver base to coordinate with the bedroom furniture pulls as well as some of the other fixtures in the room. I love the chandelier but am torn between that and a ceiling fan. The ceiling fan is much more practical and we found a really nice looking one in all black with brushed nickle accents so this decision is still a work in progress.

The chair I'm still looking. I really want a tufted chair that has the winged sides but I haven't been able to find anything anywhere! This chair is my substitute until I find what I really want (my throne!)! Below are some examples of what I really want, does anyone know where to find these?

Lastly, the couch is fantastic, the name is Marie Antoinette fainting couch, and I have ordered swatches, so it will all depend on whether the swatch will match (they also have a great ruby red that I love). As much as I love the couch, I can't decided whether it would make more sense to get a tufted bench (in suede maybe?) for the foot of bed, something similar to below?

Lots of decisions to be made but I'm excited for a project to keep me occupied and give me something to look forward to from the work/cooking/cleaning/kid shuttling and caretaking! Stay tuned for more!

My Love

Well here we are again at the end of another busy week! I'm looking forward to taking the next week to focus on us and our relationship as well as our plans for the present and future. I'm super excited to plan the layout of our house, relax in the hot tub in the mountains overlooking the woods, cuddle up under quilts while it pours outside and laugh and talk. Here's to hoping I can be an entertaining companion on the long drive down and back!

I'm so proud of all that you have accomplished and all that you have become. I know you care so deeply, and I love that about you. You have become such a shining example to those around you and I know that many, including myself, admire and look up to you.

Thank you for pushing me this week when I needed it, it might not have felt good at the time, but we both know I appreciated it after the fact! Thank you for craving company as much as I do and helping us both to work at building relationships and friendships with other people. Thank you for taking the time to always take care of yourself so you look super yummy for me, we both know that's a skill I need to work on! I love you so much salt, infinity mostest (me!) and I'm glad we've been glued together for ever!

-your pepper

Renovation Hunt

Lately my focus has been taken over by the house. Electrical is well underway and last Saturday my dad, mom, hubby and I went out on a little double date to assess flooring. There are four large warehouses located in Baltimore city that sell used everything. By everything, I'm talking, walls, beams, doors, windows, flooring, sinks, toilets, cabinetry, furniture, bathtubs, hardware, light fixtures...etc. etc. etc. Some of the stuff is not actually "used" and is still in the original packaging from the manufacturer and for whatever reason it was given to Second Chance, some is vintage and the rest is either donated or rescued from demolished buildings. It's a fantastic concept! Unfortunately, due to all the stupid marylanders who felt the need to legalize gambling (yes, I'm talking about all those who were all suckered into voting yes to give more money to schools!) these warehouses are just a fraction of what are being razed in the coming months to make room for all the slots, etc. This post is not meant to be a rant about politics, but really people, how could you be surprised when the governor and mayor came out afterwards and said that they never promised the funds would go directly to the schools? That 99%+ will just go right back to the government?

**End Rant**

Anyways, this past weekend there was a fantastic sale on flooring, at 50% off all oak flooring. We want down to take a look and found a few promising bundles, however, when we gave them an offer on 1100 square feet, they turned us down cold. Our offer was only a couple hundred less then the price marked and there are signs everywhere that say make us an offer, so when the guy pulled an attitude we just informed that we wouldn't be taking any of it and left. While that response might seem a little extreme, when you consider that 1. all the flooring was donated to them so it's all pure profit, 2. the entire building is going to be razed in a month and they are going to have to PAY to move everything they haven't sold, 3. we didn't even need the whole 1100 square footage but they wouldn't break up the bundles and sell us the amount we needed, nor would they let us break open the bundles to check the quality of the flooring! The flooring would have taken a lot of work, so in the end we are happy we decided to walk. All of it would have had to be matched (since it was from different lots), sanded and stained and installed.

However, our trip ended up not being in vain. We were all pretty disgusted with the guys attitude at the first warehouse so we left and went over to the kitchen and bathroom warehouse and struck gold! We found our all base cabinets for $75 a cabinet! Solid natural oak and brand new! They were all still in the packaging from the manufacturer! We had to do a bit of finagling to find cabinets to fit the small space we are working with (we found all but one) but we ended up buying one extra that we are going to cut down to fit the space we need. It was a huge savings over what it would have cost us to buy the cheapo ones at Home Depot, which started at $250+ per base cabinet!!! The cabinets we purchased are a much higher quality so we got quite a steal. Our original plan was to install base cabinets first in the kitchen and then go back and install the wall hung cabinets after everything else is done and we've saved up a bit more money, so we're sticking to our plan (though if they'd had wall cabinets to match you can bet your last dollar we would have bought them!). Our goal is to find unfinished cabinets down the road and finishing them to match the base cabinets. Below are some of the pictures of the warehouse we purchased the cabinets from:





We are still working on the flooring, when we went back a few days later to pick up the cabinets, we were informed that if we resubmitted our offer on the flooring, they'd love to accept it (the guy got chewed out for turning us down apparently) but now we have a lead on an even better option! Someone told us about an Amish community/business in Hagerstown that sells 7 in. red oak flooring for around $2 a sqft. We are going to be checking out this option immediately and I'll be sure to update once we find out more information!

Master Bedroom Design

The hubby and I are working hard to figure out all the furniture we need want to purchase in (what will hopefully be) one bulk order while we are down vacationing in North Carolina. So far we have measured our master bedroom and picked out the bedroom set. I am in looooooove with our bedroom set, it’s black with classic lines and silver English dovetail pulls…mmmmmm. Here are some pictures, courtesy of the good ole’ internet:

King size frame and nightstand possibility #1

My dresser

The hubby's dresser

Lingerie chest for muah!


Nighstand possibility #2

We are unsure whether we will do matching nightstands or a bachelors chest and a nightstand so we plan to buy two nightstands and one bachelor chest and use the “extra” piece in the living room.

I love the fact that the bed can be a canopy, tall four poster, medium four poster or just a stately headboard. We also plan to get this Borghese mirrored vanity for me, I think it will look completely glamorous alongside the sleek black furnishings: I am pretty excited for all of our plans for the new master bedroom but there is still the rest of the house to be figured out! All the electrical and plumbing is going in as I write this, so it is the perfect time to be figuring out furnishings and dimensions. Doing it this way will ensure that we can have the lighting and plumbing installed to fit our design of the rooms rather than designing a room to fit around the existing fixtures. Lots to do and not enough hours in the day to get it done!

I am thinking that I will put together a polyvore board to showcase my ideas for the room, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions of décor, colors or other furnishings that would compliment our soon-to-be new master bedroom furniture?

My Better-half

To my Dearest,

I feel we've hit some milestones and made some progress on many levels this week, I pray that we will continue to make progress upwards with minimal backsliding. I'm excited for the changes and the hope that it brings. I've made my share of poor decisions but I thank God that he has had enough grace to cover me and that you forgive me as well.

When I stood there 9 months ago and promised to love, honor, cherish and respect you, I meant it. I pray that one day it will come a bit more naturally and I won't mess up so much, but in the meantime, thank you for growing with me. One day we'll be the lovey-dovey old couple that makes everyone nauseous, until then, we'll just work extra hard at practicing our communication skills (even if it's at the top of our lungs)! I'm excited for the potential and for the future, I hope and pray that you will always share my enthusiasm (no joy killers allowed!).

Thank you for being my personal trainer, it's so nice to have someone rooting me on and encouraging and motivating me! Thank you for always taking the time to look soooooo nice (sexy! super ripped!) and for tolerating my early morning functioning capabilities! And for watching the most fantastic old tv shows with me and laughing and looking forward to them just as much as I do! Yes, maybe we're old fuddy-duddies but I promise to never grow up if you do!

Love you infinity mostest (me!),

~vixen

No Time for Relaxin'

Wow, what a busy weekend ahead! Tonight I have to rush out from work, pick up the hubby at work, drop him off to pick up his car from the shop, rush home and get a quick workout, shower and dinner in. Run out to a coffee date with a new friend! Then tomorrow morning, first thing, my husband, Dad and myself are heading down to (*fingers crossed*) purchase the flooring for the house! I have multiple errands that must be run; several items to bake, including strawberry cupcakes, s'mores bars, oreo bars and strawberry chocolate bars, for a picnic on Sunday; a couple's date tomorrow night with a new couple from our church, and that's just tomorrow! Sunday we are going on a picnic with 6 other young couples that compromise a new young couple's group that the church is starting. Very exciting! I've been looking forward to it all week!

To top it all off, there is the usual, weekend tasks to do, workouts to squeeze, relaxing to be done and we also need to start prepping for our vacation that we leave on a week from tomorrow! We are heading down to the mountains of North Carolina for a week and while we are there we are going to be purchasing all the new furniture for our new house!

The discount from the hundreds of retailers down there is so incredible, nearly 40% off most retailer's prices, no sales tax and white glove delivery is offered very inexpensively. For those of you who don't know what white glove delivery is, it is when the truck brings the items to your house, the delivery individuals un-crate all your items, carry them inside, installs/sets them up where ever you want them, thoroughly exams them for any flaws or damage and hauls all the packaging away. They also offer complimentary interior design consultants both over the phone, by email and on-site. My kind of furniture shopping! Highpoint, NC and the surrounding areas are definitely the prime locations and I love that I have already been able to peruse their websites and gather quotes ahead of time. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask. A lot of my friends and family have been doing all their furniture shopping in NC for years.

Where to begin?

I have plenty of posts, either in the works or in my head waiting to be written, but life has been so topsy-turvey that I haven't made it happen yet. There are so many things that I'm waiting on right now, I feel like my life is spent in constant anticipation! It's been quite hard going through life, plowing through all the mundane day-to-day activities, as well as the crazy curves life throws at you, while at the same time feeling like I'm waiting for my REAL life to pickup off the ground.

I know God calls us to live out our lives, shining our light out in the world, regardless of whether its our "real life" but it's been hard to get in the groove with all the constant change. I keep telling myself, I just have to get over X hurdle (which changes constantly too), and it's kind of like wishing one's life away. Do you remember when you were little and you had something really big to look forward to? A birthday party or a friend coming over or special trip or vacation somewhere? Time would seem to drag soooooooo slow. Unfortunately, when you get older, the things you look forward to seem to be farther spread apart, so even though time is supposed to feel like it's sped up, you still spend a lot more time waiting in anticipation then when you were a kid.

Anyway, eventually the house renovations will be done, eventually the hubby and I will actually know what we are making so we can actually make a budget, eventually the loans will be paid off, eventually I'll get to go shopping again, eventually we'll have friends, eventually we'll have replaced both of our cars, eventually I'll actually get to design and decorate and buy furniture to my heart's content, eventually I'll get to cook again, eventually I'll have my health back and be back in shape, eventually we'll have kids... But in the meantime, it gets harder and harder to distract myself and keep busy!

Anyone else out there have dreams that seem like they just get farther and farther out of reach?

Heart Pings

Did you think I would forget about you this week? No worries, this letter has been on my heart (and mind) for awhile. How do I express everything I’m feeling through words? What usually flows so naturally for me seems all disjointed and awkward. Sometimes words just aren’t enough to convey emotions, maybe a Bluetooth heart ping instead?

I know we’ve been working through so much and it felt like things had sort of flat-lined only to dip back down again. The breath of fresh air was wonderful and I know we’ll both fight tooth and nail to get it back. I know you’re tired and ready for a break, maybe a massage and a nap thrown in there too. I’m sorry if I don’t do a very good job of helping you get that break.

Thank you for never giving up. Thank you for getting down and dirty even when it’s late and you can’t think straight and nothing seemed to make sense to begin with. Thank you for working so hard for us. One day we’ll dream a future together and then realize it. In the meantime, I’ll try to be content to sit and hold your hand and just focus on getting through the now. I will always love you infinity mostest (me!)!

Sending you some heart pings…

~your darling

Social outlet

In the past year, I have moved several hundred miles, started a new job, gotten married and switched jobs. All of this has made it hard for me to find a social outlet and make very many friends. In my previous job, I traveled quite extensively, which would result in me flying home late Friday/early Saturday and flying back out Sunday afternoon. This didn’t leave much time for my husband, much less time for me to make friends.

As a result, I find myself in a frustrating spot. Old acquaintances no longer seem to fit…for various reasons, whether it’s belief, maturity, life changes…and new acquaintances are hard to come by. I crave friends to talk to and spend time with. To share ideas for the future, talk about kid/baby problems & milestones, appreciate home décor ideas or the latest recipe one of us has tried, take on home design or craft projects, admire J Crew’s latest catalog release or just have some good old fashioned girl time.

The few wonderful friends I do have are at different points in their lives, which can make it hard to connect and relate to another. Some are not yet married, others are living at home with their parents, trying to find jobs and/or are just barely making ends meet.. I don’t mean to infer that any of these places are a bad place to be, I think that we’ve all experienced most if not all of them. The frustration I have is that I find I have to watch everything I say so as not to cause envy or hurt feelings.

The husband and I are at a different point in our lives, we both have undergraduate degrees as well as masters and cpas. We both know the line of work we want to be involved in and recently have both started new jobs that we hope have very good long term potential. I know we could be living a lot more comfortably if we weren’t trying to pay all our student loans down in the next year while simultaneously renovating a house and putting away money into savings. None of this really matters to me as far as relationships go. I’ve experienced what my friends are experiencing and I certainly understand what it’s like and the process but it is frustrating to always have to watch what I say. Why does everything always have to come back to money? Why can’t it be about life first, and money is just a byproduct?

I’m just not sure what to do. Our church doesn’t have very many people even close to my age, their young adults/young marrieds group includes people all the way up into their 60’s and doesn't have many women close to my age. We’ve tried joining other young couples groups but often times the girls interests are spending their Saturdays on the street corner smiling and handing out pamphlets for the church, which isn’t exactly what I had in mind (I’m not knocking it-simply saying it’s not really my cup of tea). There are no athletic teams to get involved with anywhere around my area, I live out more in the country, so don’t really have neighbors either.

What else is there?
Anybody need a friend out there?

Holiday Hangover

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful forth of July holiday and has recovered from the three day weekend. I feel as if I am slowly starting to recover today. Yesterday I was definitely not all there, lol, I was so tired from the weekend!

Friday I spent my day accomplishing so much on the to-do list and it felt great! Saturday we enjoyed spending time with family and friends and an INCREDIBLE fireworks display, and then Sunday we had a whole bunch of kidddie bedrooms to switch around (furniture and everything) so the day was spent hauling furniture from one side of the house to the other... Plus painting, plus ripping up carpeting, plus switching out electrical fixtures, plus installing molding, plus patching walls and switching out window treatments...I'm exhausted! However, I finally feel as if I’ve gotten to the point where life is starting to somewhat normalize and I’ve gotten caught up with the every day to-do’s and can now start tackling some of those huge projects hanging over my head.

The hubby and I still haven’t picked out the photos for our wedding album and we are coming up on nine months! Definitely need to get it together on that one. I also have a few final lingering thank you’s for gifts that arrived late or thank you’s that came back undeliverable. Sometimes it feels like the loose ends from the wedding will never be wrapped up, I am dying to just have it all be over with and settled. 9 months is definitely too long!

I also need to get it together for planning our next several vacations. We have a North Carolina vacation coming up in a few weeks, then we have a weekend up in New England in August and then we have our big first anniversary trip to plan! I am very excited for our first anniversary, we’re going to Disney World!

Previously, when I’ve gone with my family to Disney World we did it a bit more budget style. My grandparents have a second home in Florida and are retired military so they were able to get a huge discount on our passes. We would have stayed at the military lodging, Shades of Green, but it was closed due to remodeling, so they put us up at the Contemporary instead! We ended up staying at a deluxe resort (for the non-deluxe low military price), we drove down so we didn’t have to pay for airlines, and we packed coolers and coolers of food and snacks so that we didn’t have to pay to eat out once!

Hubby has never been to Disney World so I am very excited for him to experience it before kids. It’s a whole other experience when you take kids…still fun and totally magical but I wouldn’t peg it as the same sort of romantic! We are going to save up so that we can fly down for 5 days, stay at one of the deluxe resorts (hopefully) and actually be able to enjoy the restaurants and some of the little extras. Ahhhhh so excited!

I will leave you with this…

The Shopping Mama!

Another fantastic blog I follow and enjoy reading is The Shopping Mama. She does fantastic giveaways and reviews of baby products. I know that I have starred nearly every single one of her posts and I have added many of the etsy sellers she has featured to my favorites on etsy. She also reviews many other fantastic baby and children products outside of etsy that I never would have been exposed to if it weren't for her blog!



Currently she is running an "All about eating" series which is absolutely terrific, you should definitely check it out!

Etsy it up blog!

There is a fantastic blog Etsy it up! and they do all kinds of wonderful reviews and giveaway. Of course I fell in love with it immediately because I love all things etsy! Currently they are running a giveaway for an Opie baby onesie with a tie applique that I just love. The Opie baby shop actually has a lot of cute stuff, wipe cases and all kinds of applique onseies, too cute!

One and Only

Dear Babe,

It’s that time again and my heart is overflowing with love for you. We have had so much fun talking and laughing (and cleaning!!!) while drawing closer these last several days. This weekend marked the close of a phase of our lives and an awesome new beginning. I am so excited to finally be here! God has blessed us both so richly, how exciting this journey will be! Thank you for always being you and encouraging me to be me.

You were so adorable this weekend trying so hard to make everything perfect for our family's cookout, thank you for caring so much and trying so hard. I know that your combination of industriousness and perfectionism will take you far and I am delighted I get to take that journey with you. One day, we will travel the world, you as a famous grill chef and me as your famous sous chef (and a famous organizational consultant too! :))!! Until then, I am delighted to be your personal sous chef as you experiment and learn.

Watching our own private fireworks show all cuddled up in the blankets this weekend was magical, I’ll remember it for as long as I live! Thank you for always being the warm to my cold, the pillow for my weary head and the strong arms holding me close. I love you infinity mostest (me!)!

-Yours Forever

Shoes Shoes and more Shoes

Somewhere around the age of 14 I fell in love with shoes and, to this day, I have been unable to shake this addiction passion. Without a doubt, I know that my love affair with shoes will transfer onto our kids! Already I am head-over-heels in love with all the handmade baby booties available for sale on etsy. I love the fact that they have a soft sole, which is pediatrician recommended! The widely assorted fabrics, adorable designs and handmade-custom look is a definite bonus! As I am pretty hopeless when it comes to using a sewing machine, other than the basic forwards and backwards in a somewhat-straight line, I will definitely be purchasing all my baby shoes on etsy!

I thought I would do a big post today on many of my favorite baby booties and sellers on etsy, many of these pairs I've already purchased, either for gifts or to tuck away for myself! But here they are, in no particular order:

JolieBerry

Hannahbell

Claudiayazzy

Devilishgrin

Miajoie

Miajoie

Miajoie

Miajoie

GraciousMay

Jolieberry

Miajoie

Miajoie

Sugarplumbtree

Miajoie

Hollywoodandvine

Hollywoodandvine

Prissypiggie

Prissypiggie

Hollywoodandvine

ivoryandmoss

ivoryandmoss

ivoryandmoss

So many to choose from! Some of the shoes above are sold or the seller is currently away but most of the sellers take custom orders, so I'm sure if you saw something you really liked, you could still purchase it! I have purchased from Miajoie, Hollywoodandvine, ivoryandmoss and prissypiggie so far, and I have to sing praises for the quality from Miajoie (now known as Joyfolie). She has been a tremendous joy to work with and the quality and time she puts into each of her items really shows through. Anybody else out there have any favorite baby shoe brands, websites or sellers?