Our New Spot

Welcome to our deck, where the citronella is crackling, the drinks are flowing, and friends are always welcome.

After searching for months for an outdoor dining table that fit in our budget, I finally found this gem on Craiglist. $100, perfect size, and small enough that we could take it apart to fit in our tiny cars. 

If I could just stay here all summer, I would be happy. Come on over! 

Statement

As the summer months quickly approach, I'm stuck in the age-old conundrum of dressing for hot and humid summer days spent working inside a freezing cold office. Either you dress for the outside weather in a cute dress and freeze inside with little to keep you warm but a cardigan, or you dress for the inside and sweat on the way to and from your car (and mess up your hair--ain't nobody got time for that!)

My favorite compromise has been a long-ish sleeved shirt tucked into a skirt, although I am very close to packing a blanket to keep my legs warm at the office! I mostly took these photos to show off my new favorite necklace that I got from Eastern Market last month. With a statement necklace so perfect for the sunny weather like this it's hard not to wear it every day! Especially when it cost a fraction of the price that these kind of necklaces sell at places like J. Crew for. 

Add some flair to your outfit this summer with one of these fun accessories! Because polka dots and stripes are just sometimes not bold enough.

La Casa de Tchotchkes

OK, I know. Blogging every day in May was an epic fail. I blogged for a few days in May and then got lazy again....sorry!

We are long overdue for an update around these parts! Several weekends ago, I embarked on a trip to the mysterious land of Atlantic City for a bachelorette party for one of my closest friends, Courtney. It was a girls weekend full of shopping, drinking, and enjoying the ridiculousness that is the Jersey Shore. However, probably one of my favorite parts of the trip was the house that we stayed in.

With a large group of girls on a budget, we rented a beach house rather than going the hotel route for the weekend. The second I stepped into the house, I knew it was going to be a great weekend. The place looked like it had been decorated in 1985, and had not been touched since then. Now you have to understand, Courtney and I bonded back in ninth grade over our mutual love for all things 80s; the music, the movies, and the style. So it was only appropriate that we were staying in a house full of vintage treasures including but not limited to latch hook art, decorations straight from childrens craft kits, and knick knacks as far as the eye can see. Tchotchkes, if you will. 

In fact, the house quickly was deemed La Casa de Tchocthkes. 

Yep...pretty fabulous.

The Memorial Day weather this year was a little disappointing and didn't lend much to enjoying the beach, but we still managed to go out and snap some glamour shots in between cuddling up in our beach towels. When the sand started pelting our faces and leaving painful marks, we decided it was time to move on.

Between spending some time with old friends and celebrating the upcoming wedding excitement, it was a great way to kick off the summer. Not to mention it made me re-think the reasons why I do not have one of these in my home...

Happy Things

Today Jenni pointed out that we are halfway through the Blog Every Day in May Challenge. What??? I know I have missed a few days but I love being back in the swing of blogging and interacting with and making some new internet friends. :) How about a bit more of an uplifting post? Contrary to what you read yesterday, I don't sit around and berate myself all day. In fact, a lot of things make me happy. Here are ten of them.

Going to see a really good movie at the theatre. We went to see The Great Gatsby this weekend and damn. The movie got extreme mixed the reviews for the movie, so I went in not expecting greatness, but I was blown away. Leonardo Dicaprio was perfection, it was true to the book, and the costumes, graphics, and music made it so much fun to watch. Not to mention it reminded me of my love for...

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I heard this song for the first time in middle school and something about it captured me. The melding of classical and jazz is exquisite and every time I hear it used in a movie (like Gatsby!) or heck, even at the 4th of July fireworks, it gives me chills. In high school, I took on the challenge of teaching myself how to play the whole thing on the piano, and even though it was far from perfect, it is one of my proudest accomplishments. I just love that song.

Lazy Saturday mornings. If there's anything I love more than lazy Saturday mornings, it's Friday nights where I know that I can sleep in as late as I want on Saturday. I love slowly waking up with Ian, making our coffee, and lounging on the couch all morning with whatever TV movie happens to be on.

Messy antique stores. This should come as no surprise to you. I thrive on aisles and piles of junk. There is always a treasure waiting to be discovered.

A meal that I can't stop talking about. Whether it was at a restaurant or a meal I cooked myself, I feel the need to tell everyone about it.

A good hair day. No explanation needed.

Spending time with old friends. Even though I love all my new friends I have made after moving away from home, there is something to be said for my best friends who I grew up with hanging out in each others basements and goofing around the neighborhood with. The friends where you don't have to be 'on' or make an effort to look cute or even make conversation. I miss my old friends like crazy and sometimes long for one more day where we could call each other up on a whim and watch Veronica Mars on DVD for days on end.

Coming home to Ian after work. Seriously, best thing ever. There are some days where as soon as I get to work, I can't wait to go home and see him. It's so fun to have someone to make dinner with and to judge the performances on The Voice with. 

Cheap wine and really good beer. Give me a glass of two dollar wine from Walmart and I wouldn't know any better, but I have definitely become a bit of a beer snob. 

Feeling content. Those moments when I'm not worrying about anything and I stop and think about everything in my life that I love, and feeling a wave of contentment wash over me. It's the best.

An Apology and a Promise

Dear Brenda,

I like to think that in general, I am a nice person, but there is one person time and time again who gets the brunt of your shitty attitude (especially when PMSing!) and that's you. I'm not sure why I obsess over how I talk to other people but yet have no filter when it comes to criticizing the way you look, your job, your weight, and more. But it has to stop, and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I make you think you need to be a perfect wife 100% of the time and that anything else is unacceptable. Ian loves you the way you are, faults and all, and while you should strive to be the best you can be, you never need to think he will leave if you make a sarcastic comment or have a bad day. Because you know you do the same for him.

I'm sorry for constantly comparing your life to other people's lives, because really, what is the point? Yes, some of your friends might have cooler jobs than you do. Some people might travel more or have more money, but you know what? It's not worth wasting your time trying to wish your life was any different than it is. Because your life is pretty damn good.

I'm sorry that I get you down when your jeans fit a little too tight. Sure, you could eat less chocolate and cookies at times, but for the most part you eat healthy and you have been making an effort to be more active. It's always good to have goals to work towards, but it's OK to not fit into your pre-wedding shorts and swimsuits. It really is.

I'm also sorry for trying to flat iron your pretty curls to a crisp. You should embrace your curls, frizz and all, because they make you unique.

You are a great, talented, and fun person who isn't perfect (but sure can rock a two dollar top from Goodwill like nobody's business), and that's OK. I'm sorry for being your worst critic and I promise to try and do better.

Love, Brenda

Ten Words

Today's post for the challenge seemed easy-peasy; ten words that sell me. Only it took me about an hour to come up with this short list; turns out selling myself isn't something I do very often. 

Happy (If I have coffee and chocolate.)

Intuitive (Sometimes, a little too much.)

Hospitable (Come on ova!)

Introverted (Depending on my mood)

Hungry (for knowledge! Just kidding, for cake.)

Logistical (Love me some plans. Any kind of plans.)

Restless (Literally. I can't sit still.)

Beautiful (Ian's response to "what are some words that describe me?" Daww)

Organized (Based on the condition of my house at times, you might disagree. But I know where everything is. Try me.)

Thrifty (I mean, duh. Do you read my blog?)

$100 Gas Bill

So I've been skipping a day here and there of the blogging challenge because you know, sometimes life gets in the way and I told myself I wouldn't stress about blogging every single day if there were days when there just isn't time.

But so you don't miss out on any seconds of my ridiculous life, yesterday's prompt was easy: a moment from our day. Here is an Instagram photo from the other day of a picture Ian bought from one of our six-year old neighbors for a dollar. It's been sitting on our kitchen table for days and a part of me just feels like I can't throw it away:

But anyway, I knew today was going to be a day I had to play along, because we are telling our most embarrassing stories. Now you might find this hard to believe, but I have a lot of them. One involves my one and only trip to the ER.

It was a Saturday morning around this time last year. I had just gotten done with a series of college exams and was back at my parents house for the weekend to escape a football weekend on campus. My parents were both out and about, so I woke up and went downstairs to make myself some coffee. As I was making my coffee, I noticed a sharp pain in my stomach. Not just a little pain, but a BIG pain that got worse when I breathed in and out. Obviously, I panicked because I definitely had appendicitis. And when I panicked, I got all hot and flustered and lightheaded and pretty much assumed I would keel over at my parents house alone and no one would discover me until hours later when it was too late. So I did what anyone would do in that situation: call my mom.

Well, my mom was thirty minutes away in the next town over at a quilt shop, so she told me to call my dad. She asked if I thought I needed to go to the hospital, and I said "I don't know. But it really hurts." So I called my dad who, like me, panicked and said he would be right home. My sister, who was with him at a giant book sale, said after he got off the phone he said "Put down your books. We need to go home--Brenda's sick".

So by now everybody thinks I'm dying. My mom called our neighbor to come over and sit with me while I lay curled up on the couch waiting for my dad to get home. I couldn't even make small talk because the pain was so bad. What seemed like an eternity later, my dad came in and said "Let's go to the hospital". We got in the car, and on our way there, I noticed that the pain had started to let up a bit, and as my dad kept asking me if I really needed to go to the ER, in my head I was thinking "maybe not", but we were already practically there. And what if something really WAS wrong? So no, I definitely needed to go.

So we get to the hospital, make our way to the ER, and my mom joins us. We sat there and I said hello to some people I knew who were also there because they had partied a little too hard the night before (oh, college town living). We sat there and waited and waited and waited until I was finally called to go back and rate my pain for the nurse. At this point, I'm gonna be honest, it didn't hurt anymore and I kind of just wanted to go home. I told the nurse it was somewhere between a two and three on the pain scale, and I was immediately banished to the bottom of the list. They led me and my mom back to a bed and made me put on a robe while we waited hours for the doctor to tend to the people who were actually dying first before finally making his way to me. While we waited, I had to call and cancel lunch I had planned with a former teacher, and if calling and explaining that you were in the ER for no reason wasn't embarrassing enough, the doctor finally came back. I described my pain to him, and without any judgement or scorn in his voice gave me my diagnosis:

"Sounds like it might have just been a little gas."

I will never forget the look on my mom's face when he told me we had just sat in the ER all afternoon because I had gas. I'll also never forget the text I got when she got the "$100 Gas Bill" in the mail a week later.

Embarrassing. I do apologize that this is the second stomach-related post this week, but come on. It's just too good and embarrassing not to tell.

Happy Friday, and especially happy birthday to my beautiful mother, who stands by me even through trips to the ER and embarrassing fashion choices when I was old enough to know better.