Five on Friday - the new year!

Linking up with some of my favorite lovely ladies for Five on Friday!!

link to Carolina Charm

I don't know about anyone else, but these mid-week holidays have thrown my life schedule into a tail-spin.  I don't know if I am coming or going.  But sadly the holiday season is screeching to a holt and on Monday life goes back to normal.  But luckily I was able to squeeze in one more day off today!  

 

{one}

So of course number 1 for this week is enjoying this impromptu day off with the hubs.  One perk of this crazy winter storm on the east coast is it was way to windy for a day deer hunting in the tree stand so I got Brandon all to myself.  He dropped me off at my hair appointment, ran some errands and then we had lunch and went to a movie (at cinema café... where we have found that beer is just 10 cents more than a soda, so really it makes sense to day drink, right!)

 

{two}

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I am not sure if I have mentioned this amazingness before, but stop what you are doing and check out CND Vinylux nail polish!!  Goes on, and comes off, just like regular nail polish but some wizard magic makes this stuff stay on for a thousand times longer than regular nail polish and dries hard in about 15 minutes.  For me, this is amazing.  My at home manis usually last about 30 minutes, because at that point they still have not dried and I have zero patience when it comes to airing my nails and I smudge it all up.  I have not seen them in store, but amazon is overflowing with shops to get them from.  Check it out!

 

{three}

Still going strong with my Closet Cleanout.  I have yet to wear anything twice, but I do have to say there is a great bit of anxiety staring at that closet and wanting to make sure I wear the right outfit at the right time.  Definitely have a fear of "wasting" a good outfit (which is a ridiculous fear... so maybe this is a good way to break me out of my comfort zone)

 

{four}

For Christmas my parent's got me my very own sewing machine!  I was so excited to get it open, but first spent a few hours cleaning out a space to put it!  Now it is all prepped and ready to go (even ready the entire instruction book... I'd like to pat myself on the back for that one!).  So I thought I need a great way to break this bad boy in so I am challenging myself, 52 new patterns in 52 weeks!  By the end of 2014, I want to have crafted all sorts of amazing things.  I have been scouring the internet for ideas and patterns and after a trip to the fabric shop this weekend I am getting down to business.  I can't wait to share my creations and epic fails (I am sure there will be plenty) here on the blog!!

Does anyone have an elna sewing machine?  Any tips?

{five}

The very best part of the holidays is all my amazing friends that have moved away come back home to visit.  I was so happy to catch up with so many of my best girlfriends and gossip about married life, babies and upcoming weddings.  I can't say enough how lucky I am to have so many sweet friends! 

Happy Friday and welcome to 2014!!!

Happy New Year 2014

Welcome to 2014 my friends!  It's the start of a new year, and I couldn't be more excited.  I love fresh starts.  It's a chance to reinvent yourself, to be the person you want to be, to do the things you want to accomplish.  So 2014... bring it on!!

 

Brandon and I rang in the New Year at his brother's house with the family.  We got in our new years kiss and talked about all the great things happening this year.  We will be moving into our new home, standing beside my best friends as they get married and celebrating our first year of marriage together.

 

Brandon and our youngest niece Tenleigh

 We had such a fabulous 2013 and can't wait to see what the future holds.  A year of more blogging, weekend trips to new cities, bachelorette parties ;), and memories with my husband!

 

Happy New Year!!

Weekend Update

We are so close to Christmas morning I can smell it... literally, there is baking going on around here non-stop!

I was so looking forward to this weekend for a few weeks now.  My sister’s 36^th birthday was last week so I had told her to clear here Saturday schedule because I was taking her out for the day. 

We started with our usual sister date of mani/pedis but instead of going to our usual pub for beers we picked up my younger brother and went out to a new winery they had built in town.  It was amazing, and the weather was to die for, so of course we had to eat on the patio.  Mermaid’s Winery (on West 22^nd in Norfolk) had a long list of wine flights to choose from that came out to your table in perfect little wine trees.  We each tried two different wine flight pairings and shared a little cheese and cracker spread.  We ranked our wines then headed to Total Wine to pick up some of our favorites.  We also stopped in at my brother’s gelato shop to grab a quick dessert.  A perfect Saturday!

My baby brother posing as a wine snob.  He described one wine as tasting too "wine-y", he might need to stick to beer!

Sunday was spent wrapping all our Christmas presents, which I am proud to say are all ready for Christmas morning!   Brandon wanted to get one of his co-workers monogrammed towels for the firehouse, so I finally got a chance to work on those too.  My mom has a pretty sweet sewing machine that can do 100 times more than she has ever gotten around to trying, so my Sunday mission was to figure out the embroidery piece.  Not to toot my own horn, but they turned out pretty great!  (and I now plan to monogram all the towels we received as wedding present, I’ve got big plans for that little machine!)

I thankfully have this whole week off to celebrate the holidays and visit all my friends who are coming back home!  Yayy for vacay!

{and I have also started my closet cleanout mission today… I even started a goodwill pile as I was organizing my clothes.  I am excited to slim down my wardrobe}

Monday's OOTD

 

Closet Cleanout

As I mentioned Tuesday we are living in a bit of a housing limbo.  I could spend my days moping about being unsettled (which I have) but I think with the new year ahead it’s time to start thinking about how I can be using this time productively and start preparing for our new life.

In our new house we will have a pretty large master bedroom closet.  I am pretty darn excited about this.  After college, I moved in with Brandon in the house he owns in Christiansburg, Virginia.  It is in a small town and the home was built in the 50’s.  Closet space in that house left a lot to be desired.  We had small closets in the master bedroom, a tiny closet in the guest room (which held the deer heads that didn’t fit in the living room), and a coat closet that fit about 2 adult coats if you wiggled them in just right, and that was it.  No linen closet, no walk-ins, not even a pantry (don’t get me started on that kitchen!).  Needless to say we are definitely moving up in the world with our new closet space, and I have big dreams for it.

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The one thing I don’t want to do though is to junk up our new space with old clothes that I haven’t worn in ages and won’t ever wear again.  I have been thinking about how to have fun with my closet cleanout process.  So after staring into our current cramped closet full of clothes I decided that I would wear everything in the closet without repeating a top (I just don’t have the bottoms to cover the spread) until they had all been worn, or donated.

So I thought I would put some rules together to help me out (and anyone else that wants to play along)

·         Each top must be worn once for a day (no putting it on for 5 mins then changing, if I don’t like it enough to keep it on, donate it)

·         We are a week away from the start of winter, so strictly summer tops are exempt from the line-up (and are already in a box in my parent’s attic).

·         Cardigans and staple pieces (aka – tank tops) can be re-worn.  These are worn over or under the main top and are just more necessity than anything.

·         New clothes can be added in, but they must go into the line-up and only worn once until you have been through it all. (I am definitely guilty of getting excited about a new piece and wearing the crap out of it!)

·         Keep an extra bag in your closet for those pieces you put on and love but just don’t fit right.  Never underestimate the power of a tailor!  Google some local tailors and make those pieces perfect!

·         Be sure to keep a box in the bottom of your closet to drop in those tops that, as you look at them, you decide you definitely don’t want to wear and drop them for donation at the end of the cleanout. (and no box diving unless you are willing to wear it!)

 

 I am hoping this will really challenge me to come up with some fun styles and also find some great ways to wear old favorites.  And hey, I consider this a jump start on a New Year’s Resolution!

Starting Monday Closet Cleanout begins!!

Date Night

I had one of those productive weekends where, at the end of Sunday, I felt pretty good about the upcoming week.

 

 

I was playing around with hair styles and even a little bit of dress up.  I had this outfit put together when Brandon and I decided a date night was in order (I mean, you can’t leave a girl all dressed up with nowhere to go).  I grabbed my purse and off to Mexican and margaritas we went! 

 

 

and I finally got to show off my new booties from the Lauren Conrad collection!  I am in love!

 

Moving to the country gonna eat a lot of peaches...

{Oh Dead Presidents, you make country living sound so delicious in your songs!}

When we returned from our honeymoon, we moved my things from Virginia Beach out to the country (also lovingly referred to as Middle of Nowhere).  Ever since I had met Brandon, he had talked about how he couldn’t wait to build his own place out in the country where his parent’s had a huge plot of land.  It is only about an hour to my family at the beach (but an easy hour, I drive it all the time)

Now here we are, married couple living out that dream.  Only hiccup so far is the “own place” thing.  Oh yea, we are still in the long, drawn out, excruciating process of building our own home.  We are very fortunate that Brandon’s parent’s had built a large house just a few years ago on the other side of the property and have been letting us stay with them till our home is finished, but oh how I cannot wait for it to be done.  We have been told that building a home together is a true test of a marriage, add on the in-laws just down the hall, and I would have to say our little marriage must be made of steel.   (We could not be more thankful to those in-laws down the hall for helping us through this whole process).

If you have ever built your own place on your land, I pray that your process went smoothly, because ours has been anything but.  I hate to jinx anything now, but I am so happy to stay we have finally found a builder who can build our plans, and the bank is all straightened out with the construction loan! 

We have amazing plans that I can’t wait to see come to life.  Our wedding presents are sitting in my parent’s house just waiting to be out of there boxes and into their forever homes.  I spend hours on pinterest seeing new ideas and decorating tips that I can’t wait to use.  I get giddy over ideas of my own office space, a kitchen to test our new receipes and evenings spent on our back porch together grilling out and enjoying a beer.  I am just chomping at the bit to move in!

And so our little family country life is about to begin. 

Where did you live right after your wedding?  Has anyone else lived with their in-laws?

Fall Favorites

My grandmother's (aka- Nanie's) backyard was one of my favorite places to play when I was younger.  It was a steep hill that was perfect for sledding.  It also produced some of the biggest and best climbing trees around.

Thanksgiving day in Pennsylvania this year was beyond amazing (besides the freezing temps) and nanie's yard made for a perfect backdrop to show off my favorite fall look! 

 

(FYI- If Victory Brewing Co is looking for a new rep... I am all over it!  Love their lager!)

What is your favorite go to style this fall?