{Home Inspirations}

My "home style" is all over the place... I like a mix of vintage, traditional and contemporary I guess you could say! I love dark, heavy wood pieces that would get from any chain furniture store; then I love the old rustic and vintage pieces you find at antique shops or specialty stores. I love bright pops of color but then I love neutrals. Recently I have developed a bit of an obsession with old, rustic doors and shutters. Having a new home has been so fun to decorate...especially since Pinterest came along! Here are some of my favorite home inspirations I have found:

Talk about good storage!! There are TONS of drawers on this piece!

We are about to order a chair just like this for a corner in our bedroom! I am going to have it covered in another fabric though.

We are eventually doing something just like this with old shutters one one very large wall in our home. I need to start collecting shutters!

LOVE these old doors!

I want to do a gallery wall somewhere in our house and I love the layout of this one.

I need this old door as a headboard! Beautiful!

Cute idea for an un-used corner.

This is what I am hoping to do once I find an entryway accent table!

I am in the market for a semi-large rustic chalkboard too! One kind of like this, but bigger and one that can hang on the wall! If you happen to know where I can get one, let me know :)

My weekend vs. my husband's weekend

Monday came entirely too fast if you ask me...I know I could have used another day or 3 off! My weekend consisted of A LOT of unpacking, organizing and a little decorating. It was our first weekend in our new house and my hubby was in Vegas celebrating his little brother's 21st birthday so I had the weekend to myself and I have to say, I got A LOT done!

I did things like organize my cupcake liners, obsessively organize my pantry, finish the kitchen, the master bedroom/closet/bathroom, unpack at least 30 boxes, vacuum and more. All very exciting.

I forgot to mention that I was without power, all alone in our new house several times on Saturday thanks to the crazy storms moving across Texas AND yesterday when I was leaving to go to the gym, my car would not start. Hmph!

Now...for a look at what my husband was doing all weekend. And for those of you who think it was crazy that I "let" him go out of town to party in Vegas 4 days after moving in...he bought his plane ticket and planned this trip with his Dad and brother months before and I am not the type to tell him he can't go. Plus, it gave me a chance to get a lot of stuff done :) I missed him but I know he had fun and I got a lot done... it is a win win. If you thought I had an exciting weekend (ha) wait till you see what his looked like...

This is the actual flyer/ad that was created by the owner of The Bank nightclub in Vegas for my brother-in-law's 21st birthday celebration. My FIL spends a lot of time in Vegas and has gotten to know him really well so they organized this big party! The party was last night...needless to say, I have not heard from my husband yet today!

The new Kardashian store in Vegas. Hubby knows of my obsession with the Kardashians so he went to this store for me :) I got a candle from their DASH store in Miami and it is one of my favorite candles so I am hoping he got me a new one!

Saturday night they partied with P Diddy, Common and Lenny Kravitz. Their table was right next to their table. This is one of the few pictures he sent to me from that night. The night before they met Jerry Jones and his entourage. Must be nice!!

I am already looking forward to this weekend....we are both home, together, at the same time! Hallelujiah!

Happy Monday, Friends! Hope yall had a great weekend!!

Day 9 Photo Challenge- Front Door

I am so behind on this photo challenge and blogging!! EEEK! But, better late than never!

This is our NEW front door to our NEW house!!! I am in love with this door...it has this cute little window that you can open from the inside of the house ( see in the center of the door?? ). Please excuse the Village Builders door mat and worker's boots....this was a couple days before we moved in. It is much cuter now :) Pictures to come soon!

Day 4 Photo Challenge- 10:00 AM

Sorry for the lack of creativity here. I am trying to catch up from the past couple of days I missed of this challenge and this was as good as I could do for day 4!

10 AM for me- sitting at work, first day back in my office in over 2 weeks, trying to catch up on hundreds (literally) of emails and several projects.
10 AM one week from today- CLOSING ON OUR HOUSE!! FINALLY!!! WHOHOOOOOO :)

Yeast Free Challenge Update, Our New Home & Our New Church

Today marks the 11th day of the 30 Day Yeast Free Challenge and day 13 of my weight loss challenge at work! I am happy to say that at my first weigh in last Friday at work I had lost 4.1 pounds! WHOHOO!! I would love to tell you that every day it gets easier but, I would by lying. Maybe if I were home and could cook all my meals but I am in Baton Rouge, LA right now staying in a hotel and eating out 3 meals a day. Next week will be tough too...I will be in California. Everyone always says "Oh you can do it, just order salads and fish & veggies; it's not that hard." Umm, that is a nice thought and all but that is much easier said than done. But, so far I am doing a pretty good job of self-control. I have been eating a lot of seafood, grilled chicken and eggs this week. And I worked out in my hotel room and hotel gym 3 times so far. This past Saturday I had my 2nd session with my trainer and he nearly killed me again...I actually think he was TRYING to make me puke. He almost succeeded! I will meet with him again this Saturday too. I can already tell I am getting stronger, my clothes are getting a little lose and I am feeling so much better! This whole "yeast-free" thing is not something I plan to stick with after the 30 days but it is really helping me not crave sweets and carbs and teaching me a lot about self-control. :)


Our new house is officially DONE!! Now the inspections will start and go for the next week or so. Chris & I have our first walk thru next Friday the 3rd. So, depending on how that goes, we will HOPEFULLY be moving in the week of the 6th!!! Here it is this past Sunday: (please ignore the leaning tree in front...that is being fixed!)


We have been visiting Fellowship of The Woodlands (Woodlands Church) for the past few weeks and so far we are LOVING it! Many of you may have heard of the pastor there or seen him on TV...his name is Kerry Shook. His sermons are televised every week. I grew up Baptist and Chris grew up Methodist. We both have our churches we grew up in, in The Woodlands but we talked about it and decided to try out a couple others too. FOTW is non-denominational but it is still a Bible-based church and we believe in what they believe in. The services are full of energy, entertainment and always a great message that we can relate to. My husband loves it because the the pastor is pretty much as sports-obsessed as him! The first Sunday we visited, the pastor interviewed Lance Berkman, this past weekend The Flying Walenda's were there, this weekend Herschel Walker will be there and the next weekend, RG3 will be there! The men are LOVING this! And, we even got married in the Chapel there and went thru some pre-marriage classes there that we loved. So, this church holds a special place in my little heart :) I am excited to be getting back involved in a great church and can't wait to see what the next several weeks will hold!

Hellooooo, Friday!

We made it to Friday!! Hallelujiah! Now for some randomness & updates! :)

-Our house is hopefully going to be ready next Tuesday!! YIPPY! BUT...we still have to go thru walk thru's and inspections before we can close. So, we are hoping to move in the weekend of February 4th and 5th but it could be a few days later. Not a very good picture, but this was on Wednesday when they were working on the landscaping:


-Today is my last day in the office for 2 weeks. Monday I head to Baton Rouge for 5 days then will be home next weekend. Then, Monday the 30th I head to California for 5 days. This is the first time I have had to travel for work 2 weeks in a row and thankfully it will probably never happen again. But, I am going to try to squeeze in a little fun while I am gone...my brother in law goes to LSU so I will see him a couple nights and hopefully eat some yummy cajun food and in California I will be with several other people and we will be right in the middle of the wine country so we are going to try to go to a couple wineries (even though I can't have alcohol for 25 more days...eeek!).


- Today is day 5 of the 30 day yeast free challenge and my first weigh in for the weight loss competition at work! I am very happy to say that I have stuck with the yeast free diet 100% this week. But, it has not been easy. Wednesday afternoon was ROUGH to say the least. I hit a big wall...I could barely keep my eyes open and every thing was irritating me. I was about ready to give up and just eat a big plate of carbs but I didn't. I was super grumpy and took it out on my hubby on our hour commute home. He was thrilled to be carpooling with me that day I am sure! Now, I have gotten over that hump and feel much, much better. My clothes are fitting a little loser and I just FEEL so much better. Less bloated and full and I have more energy! I don't even crave sweets and breads anymore...but I am having serious cravings for fruit and sushi. I mean SERIOUS cravings for these 2. I have worked out every day this week except for Wednesday too so I am hoping all this hard work is paying off! I have Kim Kardashian body envy so this is what I am aiming for (minus her boobs):


- Hubby and I booked our 1 year anniversary trip this week!! I will reveal the location and all the details later but I am SO SO SO excited! We had planned on going to Greece & Italy and doing a Mediterranean cruise but we decided that was way too expensive to do right after buying a new house so we opted for one of our favorite vacation spots and saved a ton of money. In 4 months this is where we will be:
One of the many pools & swim up bar's at our resort :) Can.not.wait.

Beeeeautiful beach! It looks exactly like this too!


- We found out last night we got tickets to the final round of The Masters this year!! This will be our 4th year going but we usually go on Friday or Saturday. My Dad asked my cousin who has lifetime tickets if he minded if we went on the final day instead and he said yes! I used to not be a golf fan but going to The Masters these past few years has changed that.


Hope you all have a great weekend!!

We have moved!

Bright and early Saturday morning the movers showed up to pack up our whole house and move us back to The Woodlands! 139 boxes and 10 hours later, we officially do not live in Houston anymore. Sunday was spent having a cleaning crew do a deep, move-out clean of our empty home and Chris and I touched up walls. We had breakfast at one of our favorite inner loop breakfast spots, Barnaby's then left our first home for the last night and headed to The Woodlands.






Our new house will not be ready until the beginning of February so all of our stuff, except for a few suitcases of clothes, will be in storage until it is time to move in. We are lucky to have both of our families there so we are going to be staying with them for the next few weeks. Here is our new house, as of yesterday! =) We hope they start putting in the hardwood floors and landscaping this week!


A lot of people don't like the building process but we LOVE it! It is so fun going to see it every week and seeing all the progress that has been made since the last time you saw it. Now that we are nearing the end we are a little more like "ok, hurry up and finish so we can move in!" But, if you ever have the opportunity to build a house, I highly recommend it!

This week we are going to try to figure out which gym we want to join in The Woodlands. We are leaning more toward 24 Hour Fitness because there is one so close to our new house and I get a really cheap membership fee through my company. And we are going to look for a new master bedroom set and kitchen table! Whohoo!

Hope yall had a great weekend!!

What a week...

This week has been filled with excitement, stress, sadness, lack of sleep and worry. I am happy and thankful it is almost the weekend and next week is a new week...

~ Tuesday morning I found out a co-worker committed suicide by stepping in front of a train. He was young, married, a Dad and he had a great job but he was very sick with depression. I did not know him personally but had to exchange emails with him over the past 3 years. My heart broke for his family and friends and my co-workers who were close to him. RIP Denny...




~ Yesterday my boss called me in his office to tell me he is leaving our company and his position is not being replaced. So, pretty much I am "boss-less" until they figure out who I will report to now. He told me my job is not going anywhere but just who I report to and some of my responsibilities will change. I cried when he told me and I am pretty sure he got a little choked up too....he hired me in October 2006 and he has been the best boss I have ever had. He has given me so many great opportunities, promoted me twice and given me raises and bonuses when he could. Him and his wife were at my wedding. I know he is my boss (or WAS my boss) but I feel like I am losing my best friend. I have been so sad since he told me the news yesterday and worried about the changes that will come. But, I still have a job so I am thankful. I know God has a plan and I am just going to trust in Him...




~ On a much happier note...today begins our moving process!! The movers are at our house as I type this and packing everything up. Tonight will be our last night in our first home and we move tomorrow. It is very bittersweet. We are so excited about our new house and being back in The Woodlands but there are so many things we are going to miss about living in Houston. Our new house will not be ready until the beginning of February so we will just stay with our parents for a few weeks. Today was my last day of having a 10 minute commute to work. Starting Monday it will be 45 minutes-1 hour. I have a full "City vs Suburb" post coming soon. Adios, Houston!


~ The TEXANS are in the playoffs for the first time in franchise history and the first game is tomorrow! GO TEXANS!!

Happy Friday!

Exciting News & A Few Updates

Remember a couple weeks ago when I said I had some exciting news but could not share it yet??? Well..... I can finally tell you- WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!!! WHOHOO!!

We actually sold it on Saturday, December 3 but our realtor advised us not to tell everyone yet just in case the guy buying it decided to back out during the 10-day option period. So, the option period is over, we passed the inspections and the appraisal went well and there is no sign of the buyer backing out! As of now he is planning on closing on January 7th so we will move out on January 5th & 6th...EEEEK...that is less than 3 weeks! It took 1 month and 3 days for our house to sell. We got very lucky and feel very blessed because we know so many people out there have had their houses on the markets for months and maybe years. This was part of God's plan and His timing was perfect and we could not be more excited! :)

We head out of town tonight and will not be home until Sunday night, then we have friends coming in town for NYE weekend so I have no clue when we are supposed to back up our entire house and be ready to move in less than 3 weeks.

Tonight we are flying to Georgia to spend a few days with my Dad and family there, then we will be with our families in The Woodlands over the weekend! It is going to be a busy few days but I love getting to see all of our family during the holidays so it will be fun.

Last but not least, here is an update on our NEW house in The Woodlands! I am loving the process of building a home. Seeing all of the stages of it getting built is so fun. Last week our cabinets got put in and they painted the walls. And the finished the stone & brick on the outside of the house. I am most excited about the granite we chose and I can not wait to see it once it gets put in. I will share more pictures next week but here is our house as of this past Sunday, December 18th:


This will be my last blog post for a week so I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday!!!

Back in the swing of things

What a craaaazy month November has been! I am so looking forward to December. I will not be traveling for work again until January and I just LOVE this time of year!

I have not been able to blog much lately so here are a few updates:

- We are hoping to get an offer on our house this week!! We have 3 couples that are really interested in it and our realtor is expecting an offer to come thru at any time now! YAY!!! Let's just hope it is an offer we like :)

- Our new house is coming right along! It is still on track to be ready in the middle or end of February. We went to see it on Saturday and the sheet rock is up, the plumbing and electric outlets have been installed and it has a roof! This is it as of Saturday morning:



- Chris and I are starting to train for The Woodlands Half-Marathon today! Whohoo! It is just a little over 4 months away. This will be my 5th Half-Marathon and his first. I have been in a major funk with running this past year but I am going to try to get back into it. I always go thru phases with running...I do really well for a few months then I get burnt out and just quit running all together. Maybe (hopefully!) this time will be different :)

- Chris turned 30 last Friday!! We had such a fun day celebrating with his family in Oklahoma then spending the evening with my family in The Woodlands. Then, we went out with about 25 of our friends on Saturday night and had a little too much fun. ;) Pictures to come tomorrow!

- The next couple of weeks are going to be filled with a lot of Christmas fun...I have a couple Pinterest projects in the works, finishing up Christmas shopping, a lot of baking & cooking, Christmas music & scents, parties and family and friends. I. can. not. wait.


Happy Monday!

Pass the margaritas please...

I AM ALIVE, I swear! But, I am officially stressed up to my eyeballs. I managed to find a few minutes to get a quick post in but it is going to be short.

I am so behind on reading all of your blogs and obviously posting...I have been on Pinterest only once in the past 8 days...I have only been on Facebook a couple times and even that was on my Blackberry. I feel so behind and out of the loop. It is amazing how much social media really affects your life when all of the sudden you don't have time for ANY of it.

I am going to try really hard to post about our trip to LA tomorrow or over the weekend. I have so many pictures and details to share! But, until then, here are a couple updates...

-I had to make a REALLY hard decision this week...my nephew's 1st birthday is this weekend and my sister-n-law (go check out her blog... www.slancasteriii.wordpress.com/ ) and my brother have been planning his first birthday party for months. I bought my plane ticket a couple months ago and was so excited to spend the weekend with them and see my sweet nephew. My flight is supposed to leave in the middle of the afternoon tomorrow but due to some things going on at work now I had to make the decision not go to North Carolina for his birthday. Work is INSANELY busy right now and I have some major projects that are going to be audited along with several other things going on and I could not afford to miss a half day tomorrow. :( I looked for other flights leaving at different times but they were way too expensive or they would get me there after his party was already over so I just had to finally make the decision to not go. I was sick to my stomach about it on Tuesday night. I called Chris, my Mom and my brother crying (I think all this stress is making me a little overly emotional this week). I am sure they were all thinking I was being a bit of a basketcase. I actually am getting teared up again as I type this. (See why I need some margaritas???) Anyways, I hate that I can not be there and I have been in a funk about it all week. At least I will get to spend a couple days with them when they are here in December for Christmas!

-Our House(s)- Our house has been up for sale for almost 3 weeks and we have had quite a few showings. Whohoo! No contract on it yet though. Luckily we have 3 months until our future is house is completed so that gives us some time to sell ours. We met with the design center for our new house this week. Have any of you ever gone thru that process before? It is so fun getting to pick out the tile, hardwood floors, carpet, granite, knobs, etc.. but there are SO many options to choose from! I am really happy with everything we chose and can't wait to share pictures when it is all in the house :)

That is going to have to be it for now. I hope to get things backt to normal soon and hopefully I will have a really good LA post for you tomorrow!

xo

Hellooooo from California!

Hi Everyone! I am typing this post from sunny (and cold) Los Angeles! It is FREEEEZING here. I never thought it would be warmer in Houston than southern CA. I flew in yesterday morning and got to work. Hubby flies in late Thursday night and we have a fun filled weekend planned...can't wait until he gets here!

Now, for a few updates....

-Tomorrow I am doing my first guest post!! Whohoo!! Check back tomorrow for more on that...

-WE FOUND OUR FUTURE HOUSE!!!!!! Our house went up for sale last week and has gotten a lot of showings so far and a couple from France actually really interested in it so we spent the weekend looking at houses again and found one that just started being built that we fell in love with. It will be ready in February and it is our perfect house...it has everything that we wanted in a new house and in our price range AND in the location we wanted. So, we have started the paperwork and now get to start designing the house! Here it is right now-


And here is the model (it will look like this when it is done except the stone & brick colors will be different)-


YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are SO excited! Now just keeping our fingers crossed our house sells by February.

-I feel really bad that sometimes I don't comment back to people who leave comments on my blog :( BUT...it's not that I don't try. Some people do not have their email set up on their blogs so when I try to respond to a comment that was left for me, it goes to a "blogger no-reply" email. So, I am very very sorry to a few of you that consistently leave me comments and you never hear back from me :( Set up your email addresses on your blog and I promise you will start getting A LOT more comments! It makes a big difference, I promise :)

That's it for now. Remember to check back tomorrow for a link to my guest post. Happy Tuesday!