Something Old, Something New, Something Ordered, and Plenty to Do!!

It's time to start decorating!!! Or at least make plans to start decorating. Thanks to my friend, Sarah, who works in interior design, I have a starting point and some fun ideas swirling around in my little head. Here is what I'm thinking so far...  (Caution: long blog post ahead.)

Something Ordered (this is my starting point):
The weekend that we moved into our new house, Brandi and I went to Home Depot and bought blinds for our downstairs windows. While we were waiting, for almost THREE hours, we looked around the store multiple times. While we circled the store over and over I found an area rug for the living room that I liked alot. It was one of those things that I just knew I loved it as soon as I saw it. I'm still not one to be an impulsive buyer, so I just took a mental picture and went home with the blinds and no rug.
After that, I looked at area rugs wherever I went. I didn't like any of them nearly as much as I liked the one in Home Depot. So, I finally decided that the "Home Depot" rug was the one for me. I got Sarah to okay my choice, and we ordered the rug this weekend. It should be here in about 10 days, and I can't wait!!

I love the colors in this rug!! It gives me some great options for decorating downstairs. And yes, this rug is shag and I LOVE it!! I ordered the biggest size, so it's definitely going to bring alot of color into our living room. Can't wait to see what it looks like in the house!!

Something New:
World market is quickly becoming one of my favorite places. They can be a little pricey for me on some items, but I've also found some really reasonable things that make me very happy...take these curtains for example.

Ok, so from the rug above, I have decided to paint the dining room a really dark brown, like dark chocolate brown. It is a very open room with great windows and lighting, so I'm going to be brave and do something bold. I was thinking that I would use either the blue or green from the rug as an accent color in there, but Sarah gave me the idea to accent with red. It had never even crossed my mind to use red, and I loved it right away. We haven't painted the dining room yet, but last weekend I went into World Market just to browse and I spotted these from across the store. This was another case of "I love those and I have to have them!" I love that they are lightweight and almost sheet-like. With such a dark color on the walls, I don't want a thick, heavy window treatment, and I also don't want to make the dining room TOO formal. I am so excited to get these up on the windows!!

Something Old:
When Brad and I were house hunting, we looked at this house and then we looked at the model home for our floor plan to see what the rooms looked like with furniture in them. I thought everything looked great in the model except for their eat in kitchen area. It's a big area between the kitchen and living room, but it's also a high traffic area. It is where the sliding glass door is located that leads to the back patio.  The table that they had there was too big, and blocked much of the walkway...in my humble opinion anyway. So, that's how we came up with a pub table and bar stools idea.
We wanted a table and four stools, but we planned on putting two stools at the table and two stools at the bar. Once again, World Market made me very happy. We found a table and stools that both of us really liked, we just weren't as crazy about the price tag. It's not that it was super-duper expensive, but you have to remember that I am a bargain shopper. I'm not cheap, I just love to find great deals. So, even though we loved the table and stools, we have been putting off buying them. We even thought about buying the table there and the stools somewhere else, just to cut down on the expense.
Well, thank goodness we put it off!! Last night I got on the computer to check my emails, and just as I was about to shut it down, I thought that I would just take a quick peek at Craigslist. I think you know where this story goes from here... Listed within the first ten posts was, "World Market Pub Table and Chairs Set." So of course I clicked on the listing, and TA DA...there was the exact pub table set that we have been looking at....listed at half the price as World Market has it listed as. SCORE!!
I ran downstairs and told Brad. Then I called the girl who listed the set, went and looked at it today, and now it is in our kitchen!!! It has a couple of knicks and dings here and there, but definitely nothing that can't be touched up, and for the price, I just couldn't pass it up. So, here is our (old) new pub table set!!

So, that is where we are with house decor. Oh, but wait, how could I forget Brad's prized possession that he has acquired since we have moved here?? (insert sarcasm) I mean, this WAS the very first thing we bought for our house...and definitely the most important. I don't know how we made it as long as we did without it...

This is his 60 inch LED TV for the "mancave." And yes, that is Candice Olson and her show Devine Design...on the big screen...in the man cave. Hee hee. The ruler of the mancave wasn't home today, so I got to watch girly stuff in the mancave. I have to admit that it's nice, and he claims that he doesn't have to have anything else for the rest of the year. (I was thinking the next few years....) Ha! But, seriously, I AM glad that he got what he wanted, and now I get to have fun with the rest of the house!! :)
We are both really excited about making our new house a home, whether it's pretty curtains, a big TV, or a colorful rug...that's what's going to make it ours!! Here's to many more decorating blog posts!!

What I Learned From Buttercream 101

Saturday morning I took a Buttercream 101 cake decorating class with Carol. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot, but I wish that I wouldn't have been COMPLETELY new to decorating. Sure, I had baked and cake and frosted it before, but I had never "decorated" one. Saturday morning was the first time that I had ever layered cakes, done a crumb coat, iced the cake and decorated it with bags, tips and colored buttercream icing.
Friday night I baked my cakes and put them in the freezer like our instructor, Kathy, told us to do. I gathered all of my supplies, put them in a bag, and started to really get excited about class the next morning.

These are my cakes that I baked Friday afternoon. So far, so good...

Class started at 10:30 Saturday morning, and Carol and I had front row seats, so I was super excited that I would have a great view and be able to follow along fairly easily. First, Kathy had us level our cakes with a serrated bread knife...this is where my problems began. It didn't take long, huh? haha. As I slowly pushed the first cake into the knife like she instructed us to do, my cake began to crumble....on all sides. This was not good!! The second cake followed suit of course. So, my "level" cakes were not so level, but I worked with what I had. We couldn't really figure out why my cakes did that. She thought that maybe I mixed the batter for too long and dried it out, but the cake was really moist...who knows?? Either way I had a crumbly mess.

I slapped some icing on one of cakes and stacked the second on top. Then, I applied my crumb coat and iced my lopsided cake. As we moved on to learning how to use the bags and tips, I realized that this was definitely just a practice cake for me. I didn't wind up getting to do a lot of decorating. I practiced a lot on my wax paper that I brought to class, and I tried a few techniques on the cake. This is what I brought home...

My sad little cake, it's even crooked on the plate. LOL. And those little things on the cake are flowers, I just didnt' have enough icing left to add the stems at the end.

All in all, I am glad that I went to the class. I had a great time with Carol, and I learned techniques that I can practice at home. I also learned that I should have done this a few times at home before I went to class. Oh well, now I know. I really can't wait to try another buttercream cake now that I know what to do. Hopefully each one will get better and better. I will keep you posted!!

Worth the Insanity

Today is the beginning of week 3 of the Insanity workout. Brad and I started this program before we went to Chicago, but then we were on vacation and the workout routine kind of went down the drain. You saw those big pieces of delicious pizza...we just couldn't resist!!! So, we decided that Insanity would have to wait until we got back home.

Now we have made it to week three. It's a 60 day program, and trust me, they came up with the right name for this workout!! It is the hardest workout that I have ever done. Take a look for yourself. This is right after a workout.

I know, I know....WHY would I post this horrendous photograph??!! I will probably be asking myself the same question the next time I look at this post, but right now I'm thinking that I want to show what these workouts do to you and how exhausted we are afterwards. I would say we both look a little Insane!! ;)

 I love it because it doesn't require any equipment at all. It's circuit training and you just use your body weight. You workout six days a week (we have missed a couple of days here and there, but we really try to stay on schedule) and do a "fit test" every two weeks to see how your strength and stamina are progressing. Today was my second fit test and I improved in every exercise!! I even doubled the number of reps that I could do in some of the exercises!! SO encouraging after pressing through these exhausting workouts!! I threw our scale away a few months ago after it broke, so I'm not sure what I weighed when we started, but I picked one up last week so that I can keep track from here on out.
Two weeks down, gotta keep pushing on. Or as Shaun T would say, "DIG DEEPER!!"  ;)

Four Days in Chicago

A couple of weeks ago Brad and I took a little vacation to Chicago. This was our first time in the windy city, and we had a great time. It was an action packed four days, but there are tons of things that we didn't have time to do while we were there. We hope to go back someday and do a little more exploring around the city. In a nutshell, here are a few of the high and low points of the trip.

Things We Loved

• Pizza!!
• The nice weather and constant breeze...it really is windy there!!!
• Wrigley Field and that the Cardinals won
• Navy Pier
• Kings of Leon concert at Tinley Park
• The Drake hotel
• The Shopping
• Pizza!!
• The train systems. It was super easy to get around
• Garrett's Popcorn
• Ghirardelli and Hershey's...right across the street from each other...Awesome!!
• Gorgeous buildings!! We would love to do an architecture tour sometime.
• Did I mention Pizza??!! The deep dish was very yummy...Gino's was our fave!!

Things We Didn't Love

• Blisters on our feet. It was a blessing and a curse that we were able to walk everywhere
• Expensive taxi cab rides...thank goodness we only had to take one!!
• The scary elevators in the hotel. This included random stopping, doors not opening and really loud buzzing noises. I closed my eyes and held my breath every time we stepped onto one....Brad just laughed.
• The huge crowd shoving onto the train after the game at Wrigley. It actually went better than I thought it would, but when you are standing between the open doors and the train alarm sounds and announces that "the doors are now closing," it is a little unsettling. Haha. They really don't give you much time to get on and off...especially when thousands of people are pushing to get on or off of the train.
• Leaving Chicago with things still on our to-do list. You can only squeeze so much into four days.

We would definitely say that the trip was a success. As you can see, our "Loved" list is longer than our "Didn't Love" list. And we survived the things we didn't love anyway...blisters are healed, only one cab ride, and no injuries from elevators or trains. :) Here are a few random snapshots.