Then and Now: Blue and White Summer Lace

It's been a long while since I've done one of these posts but they have always been a favorite.

Last month I bought a new dress to wear to my brother-in-law's wedding in Charleston.  Actually, I had plenty in my closet to already choose from but after tie shopping with my husband for an unknown amount of time (the man really takes it seriously), I decided to make him sit through some dress shopping in Anthropologie.  Of course instead of following me around the store like I imagined,  he quickly found a comfy couch and that was that.  I picked out this really simple but modern looking blue dress.  Loved it.  I liked it's simplicity and thought the cut was pretty different than what I usually go for.  I had seen another blue dress near the front of the store and strolled back by and decided to try it on for fun.  Everyone else does that too right?  This dress was not simple.  It had crinoline underneath for goodness sake.  And it was Tracy Reese.  My favorite dress in my closet is Tracy Reese.  I like to think of it as my Mrs. Obama dress.  Well, I tried them both on.  The simple one was fine.  But the fancy one was, well...fancy.  I took them to the husband on the couch and asked him to pick which one he liked more.  Obviously not telling him the price of either.  That would be silly.  He said the fancy one.  Well, darn.  I had to get it now.

I randomly came across this vintage dress not long after making the purchase and tucked it away to share.

It was the best Charleston wedding (guest) dress.  Loved it, especially the buttons and opening in the back.  Turns out Jon didn't get to wear his specially picked out tie.  So, I'm thinking we will need to break out these outfits again before the summer is over.

Then Dress: MillStreetVintage

Now Dress:  Anthropologie

this week:: 5.5.14

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I pre-celebrated with margaritas with some work friends on Thursday and then for a friend's birthday on Saturday so maybe I don't need a margarita tonight.  Who am I kidding, of course I do!

Another reason to celebrate-closing on the house in one week!  So far I've packed up all the drinking glasses and other small glass fragile items in the kitchen.  Yep.  That's it.  We don't have to be out of our current rental house until the 25th so we aren't in any major rush to be moved out by next week.  Plus, packing is the worst.  I still have the college mentality of just throw everything in your car and it will all make it there safe and sound.  It's only 15 minutes away so I'm sure that will be happening a lot.

Oh, and only 25 school days left.  Let's have a margarita for that too!

Here are some of my favorites this week:

Meeting Avril Lavigne sounds like the worst ever.  

Pretty flowers for mom.  Or yourself. :)

I'm obsessed with painting something in our new house this color.

This finally decided it.  I'm cutting off my hair (again).

I could even go this far.

And just because I can't stop thinking about it, here is another.

this week:: 4.27.14

Weekend already over.  Jon and I did some new house furniture browsing.  We need a lot of things but will need to decide what we need the most first.  It's almost May!  May is the fastest month for teachers, which can be a good and bad thing.  Spring break always makes me so much ready for summertime.  We have a few good trips taking shape that I'm getting excited about. 

Here are some things I loved lately: 

This brought up a few tears.

I'm way too excited about new house things.  Even organizing the pantry.

This skirt.

Or any circle skirt.

Mine is named Kate.

Jon started a blog!  Music of course :)

New House!

Jon and I bought a house!  Woohoo!  I'll use that as my excuse for not blogging for the last month and a half although Jon did the majority of the nitty-gritty work being that he isn't surrounded by 21 little people all day.  It all happened pretty fast.  One weekend we went driving around a different neighborhood (Stonehaven), liked it, and started looking up some houses.  We went from "Could we buy a house?" to our final offer in what seemed like a few weekends.  Closing is on May 12 and I'll be filling up my New House Pinterest board til then.

The house is in pretty good shape so no huge projects will be needed immediately.  Mostly just painting.  I have no idea where to start with that.  In my last single girl apartment I painted a few rooms with my mom's help but the idea of having an entire house to paint and coordinate colors is slightly overwhelming.  It has been noticed that a lot of my favorite rooms I pin or find on blogs have white walls.  I love the idea of an entire white walled house but not sure it would work with the style of our new house.  We have about 2 weeks in between when we close and when we can move out of our current rental house in Plaza Midwood.  We plan on moving a small stuff a little at a time and hopefully I can get some painting done before everything is moved in.

There is one project I'm going to do first thing...paint this fireplace.  Here is a sneak peak:

Thank you, YHL for making me feel pretty prepared to take this on.  The light is great in this room (great room, den, family room?) and I love the ceiling beams.  And the little stained glass window!  Can't wait to see how a few layers of white paint will brighten it up even more.

It is a lot different than our current eclectic bungalow neighborhood but I think our new house has nice little touches of character for a house built in 1975.  I can't wait to get the keys and take pictures to share my favorite things.

Come on May 12!

3rd Grade Says-February Edition

My class cracks me up.  Today I was making mental notes of some of their hilarity and decided to share.  This was just today.  I'll have to start remembering more for next month.  

"What am I going to do now that Ms. Judy is gone!  I'll have to start robbing cars!"- Who knew your cafeteria manager retiring could be so dramatic.

"You know when you want to kill someone but even killing them isn't enough?"-Umm, no actually I don't.

"It's like I always say, men are totally a waste of time.  Well, usually."- She is a wise one.

My Blo Out Experience

For Valentine's Day I had booked an appointment at Blo Charlotte to have my hair blown out for the first time in ages.  It happened to be the week of the big snowstorm and since we had dinner plans for Saturday anyway, I rescheduled my appointment.  It was super easy to book (or reschedule) an appointment on their website or their app and they have locations all over.

When my stylist took me back to the chair she had me look through their "Style Guide Book" to choose a style.  I chose the Red Carpet look since it still had some bend to it.  I'd love to go back and try the updo or even the fishtail braid.  The girl next to me was having the "Holly Would" look which had a lot more curl and bounce.  Maybe that's what the girls with straight hair go in and request.  :)

My stylist loved having some "virgin hair" to style.  She was good with the round brush!  I told her she was a magic woman, she made it look so easy!  A few tricks I noticed, she 3 products-a straightening cream, a volume spray on my roots, and a little dab of some smoothing oil on it when it was finished.  Also, she free dried it for more than I ever would have done before using the brush and it still ended up so smooth.  I would always still end up having to use the straightening iron or curling iron for the pieces around my face which are always the curliest.  She did it all with the brush, I was amazed.

Jon was surprised too, I didn't even tell him about it.  He had never seen my hair straight and asked when it would change back.  Like it was a Fairy Godmother spell and would change back at midnight!  We went out to dinner and kinda felt like a different person.  You just feel like you are looked at differently.  It was fun for the weekend but by the time I washed it (it still looked great) I was ready for my curls back.

I'd love to go back again, maybe next time with some friends and all try different styles.  That would be a fun way to start a girl's night out!

this week::2.16

Last week was a bit crazy- many snow days and a great Valentine's weekend.  Hopefully the week won't be too long (really, I have to work 5 days instead one and a half?!), the weather will warm up and stay warm, and I can get back to yoga a lot more.  I've been missing my lavender scented washcloths!

Here are some pretty great favorites:

Ice Dancing to Drunk in Love.  Not really but still great.

I love some music in the kitchen.

Whoa.  This just shows that any space can be beautiful.  Mobile homes included. 

Yay, big naturally curly hair on a magazine cover.

Snow cat!