Happy 27th Birthday to My Fave Guy!

If our future babies look half as cute as you did

in this 1985 Olan Mills photo (does everyone remember Olan Mills?), I will be a lucky woman.

Love, Your Wife

P.S. Thanks for proposing to me on this day three years ago.  Can't believe it's been so long since then!

P.P.S. Since we will be embarking on a nine-hour roadtrip when this post goes live, I guess I should drive during and let you listen to the US versus Algeria World Cup game with nary a complaint.  It is your birthday, after all.

How to Tie a Knot

There are many things I love about this image, but most of all is this rope knots tea towel*.

Elle Decor via Small Place Style

I must have this! I have tracked it down here**, and I may just have to splurge on it, even though navy doesn't really go in my kitchen. (However, this one and this one would. I think they would look awesome framed and hung together. Maybe I could do that with the knots one and use it in another room until I have my someday-all-white-with-blue-accents kitchen. Problem is, I actually need some tea / dish towels, and these are so much more interesting than your Plain Jane ones.)

* Curious as to the origin of the name tea towel, which I seem to see more of now as opposed to calling it a kitchen or dish towel (yes, I actually think about these things), I found this on Wikipedia:

In 18th century England, a tea towel was a special linen drying cloth used by the mistress of the house to dry her precious and expensive china tea things. Servants were considered too ham-fisted to be trusted with such a delicate job, although housemaids were charged with hand-hemming the woven linen when their main duties were completed. Mass-produced tea towels were produced during the Industrial Revolution. Today pictorial tea towels make charming and collectible souvenirs.

What pictorial tea towel do you use to dry your precious and expensive china tea things?

How Do You Display Your Photos?

One Kings Lane* is offering gift certificates for gallery wrap canvas prints from Chic Canvas for quite the discount right now.  I shopped around some other websites and found it to be a really good price.  (I did find one site where the 20x24 wasn't that much more expensive.)

One of the problems is that I don't know which photo I'd pick, so I'm having trouble deciding the dimensions for the one I'd buy! We have our high-res digital negatives of our beautiful wedding photos, and I haven't yet had any portraits printed, partly because I don't know if we really need to have something so large of us on display.  (I already feel like a 16x20 of one of our awesome engagement photos is a bit much, even though we're a smaller part of the photo, standing inside this sculpture.  I ended up putting it in our bedroom.) 

Now if it was just of some cute kiddos like this, or a great landscape shot from a vacation, I think it would look great as a big statement piece. But I'm just not so sure I want to see myself so large, or if our houseguests want to see us in a canoodling wedding photo. Also, I recently picked up a ton of silve frames matted to 11x14 that were on clearance at Target, and I've started to collect the ever-popular IKEA Ribba frame as well, with the idea to eventually have a gallery wall of favorite photographs, but without it being wedding or couple overload.

  

So I turn to you, my helpful readers. Should I buy it? (I can always save it for later, there's just that question of which size.) Are you going to buy it?  What would should I have made with it, or what would you make?

Do you think once you start decorating with gallery wraps, that future portrait-worthy prints should get the same treatment as well for consistency in your home?

* Let me know if you want an invite and I'll email you the link!

Packing Success!

Can you believe this is all I'm taking on a four-day trip?

Compare mutant toy poodle to tell the scale of my bags

All my life, I have not been skilled in the art of packing.  (I need lots of back-up clothing options, you see, which equals a lot of stuff.)

But determined not to pay to check a bag (totally ridic), I resolved to fit it all into one carry-on and one personal item.  (And I told J he better do the same!)

And I did!

We are leaving the house at 5:30 am (!) tomorrow morning for a wedding in Michigan.

I packed:

2 wrap dresses for dinners Thursday and Friday

1 cocktail dress for the wedding Saturday

1 casual dress for brunch Sunday

1 white skirt

1 pair of white jeans

4 tops (there should be 2 extra)

1 jean jacket in case it gets cold

2 pairs of heels

1 pair of ballet flats

1 pair of flip-flops

+ jewelry, toiletries, hair straightener, et al.

I am finally a packing success! (I rolled everything reallly tightly.  I'm crossing my fingers I can get it all back in later!)

I'm excited - J booked his ticket on points and gets first class on the way there. Guess who gets the seat on the longer leg of the flight?  Ooh ooh!

I've never been to Michigan.  We'll be in a small town outside of Detroit, and I'm expecting it to be really beautiful there. They've reserved bikes at the hotel, so I think that's what I'll be doing while J golfs Friday.

Have a great weekend, blog friends!

So Tweet It, Just Tweet It

So I've joined Twitter.

So I can tweet about blog giveaways for extra entries.

Because I like to win stuff.

Maybe I can manage some riveting, witty insights into this great world as well.

Such as, "What's up with all of the creepers on The Bachelorette?"


Or maybe I will solely tweet more bad puns like the title of this post.


Follow me and see!


(Once I figure out all of the Twitter @ lingo # and RT etiquette DM.)

Scenes from the Last Few Days

...courtesy of my iPhone.

Dusk on Friday

Brunch Lunch on the patio at Gloria's Saturday

We decided not to use the word brunch since we never get breakfast food.

(We usually split pupusas and the churrasco tipico here. Que rico!)

I was slowly savoring my $4 mimosa until I was told they were bottomless...managed to get 2 more in. 3 for $4 is a steal!

We went to the Byron Nelson on Sunday, but I didn't take a single picture.

It was HOT.

My favorite part was sitting in the A/C in the HP Technology Center.

I cried a little when we left.

Leaving work Monday

Speaking of hot, when I first looked at the temp in my car, it read 100 degrees and very appropriately, the song display was Usher's "OMG".

By the time I was able to slow enough to take a pic, it had cooled down to the oh-so-manageable 97 degrees.

It's going to be a looooong summer.

Dinner at my in-laws' Monday

It cooled off some more, so we ate outside in their lovely, breezy atrium.

I don't know if you can tell what it is from the photo, but we had crab sandwiches, Brussels sprouts, and champagne.

The open-faced crab sandwich is the yummiest, easiest thing to make:

Texas Toast

topped with

Sliced Avocado

topped with

Crab (canned will work)

topped with

Hollandaise sauce

with a squeeze of

Lemon

Serve with bubbly champagne. 

Korbel Naturel was supposedly Jackie O's fave.

I felt fancy.

Drive home Monday

Somebody has recently discovered the feel of wind in her hair (& ears).

How was your weekend?

Sum, Sum, Summertime!

As if I didn't want it to be summer already, the new lookbook from Ruche is certainly doing it!  I just cannot get over how beautiful the styling and photography is.

(If you're reading in a reader, you may have to click through to see it.)  Here are some of my abso favolutely favorite looks:

The Scrabble letters are too cute.

Sandals, get on my feet!

I love everything about this photo.
Note to self: Try out red lips.

If my wedding was a beach photo, this would be it.
(It had a lot of navy, with a few navy & white polka dot accents, and cheery yellow flowers)
I adore everything about this as well.

I (almost) wish my hair was long again so I could wear a braid like this.

Are you with me on summer? Have you made any new shopping discoveries lately?

Sharon Montrose on 20x200

I love Sharon Montrose's work. (You've got to check out her new-to-me Dog Photo Booth if you haven't seen it!)

Today, her Baby Giraffe No. 5 is on sale at 20x200.  They're almost sold out of the 8x10s, and I'm seriously considering springing for the 11x14 at $50. 

Have you ever purchased anything off of 20x200?

P.S. In other animal news, tonight is a Wüf Wedding at Lee Park here in Dallas. Your dog can be joined in holy muttrimony with another pup, complete with a reception and doggy and human wedding cakes.  (The canine bride and groom exchange biscuits as a sign of their affection.)  Totally crazy or makes-me-wish-my-dog-had-a-significant other? Maybe in the next year or so she'll find her soulmate, she's only 5-7 dog years right now.

Navy & White

...I-eeee-iiiiii will always love you. You will always be a part of my fave palette.

Victoria Hagan Interiors

Beadbaord Ceilings

Let's talk ceilings.

The one in my bathroom is the only one in our home with popcorn texturing (thank goodness), and as of late, it's looking very, very sad down the middle due to some repairs by the previous homeowner that weren't done properly.

So I suggested to my dad, my Ceiling Replacer Man, the beadboard ceiling:

Design Esquire

Life in the Fun Lane

He was a little skeptical at first, but is now on board with the beadboard (haha!) after I showed him these photos. I think it will look great in our bathroom, especially because the vanity cabinets have a white beadboard face.

I'm not sure exactly when we're going to tackle this project, but I'll be sure to share the before and afters!