Gettin' Hitched - Literary Style: DIY Rehearsal Dinner

Warning: Photo Dump. But good photos! Photos from our awesome rehearsal dinner! Since we got married in Michigan, we had a Wisconsin-themed rehearsal dinner in order to incorporate some of J's favorite things - beer, cheese, brats, and beer. Oh - and the Packers, Brewers, and beer.

I should begin with how we started that day though. It was obviously a very stressful day...

Basking in the sun

Project: Hallway Over-Hall, Part 1

This is one of those projects that started because of another project, during which I got distracted and started working on something else - and now this project is finished and the one that I started is still sitting in the garage... sound familiar?

At least both projects are in the hallway. Our weird, little hallway. It's just a really small space in which six different doors/entryways intersect. Clockwise, we have: the entryway from the living room, a closet with a folding door, the door to the guest room, the door to the bathroom, another closet door, and then the door that heads upstairs.  Originally there was actually another door in there too (from when the living room was another bedroom - you can read more about that here), and that may explain why the door that heads upstairs currently swings out into the hallway. And while that may have used to make sense, now it's just an annoying problem.

Gettin' Hitched - Literary Style: DIY Save-the-Dates and Invitations

When the Mr. and I got engaged a few years ago, we weren't really sure where to begin planning. Should we have a big, white wedding or shoot for a destination wedding and get married on a beach somewhere tropical? Hire it out or DIY? How much should we spend? How much can we afford? Should we have a theme? Who should stand up with us? And on and on and on...

Theme-wise, we went round and round a bit, but really only threw around one idea seriously - books. Yep. We're nerds - and we embrace it. We love to read. On trips, part of our suitcases are reserved for books we buy along the way. We retrofitted bookshelves to hold our TV so that we could fit more book in our living room. So ultimately it wasn't a terribly difficult choice - but apparently it wasn't a common one either because I couldn't find Save-the-Dates or invitations to match up with our theme and our budget... so, whats an el' cheapo DIY gal to do? DIY them of course!

Blogging for a Babies and Boobies

One of the great things about LowesBerg (yes - that's what I've named our house. no - it's not a manor, but if Downton Abbey can have a name as well as an address, well, then so can LowesBerg)...

...is its location. We're super convenient to the Metro (DC's lifeline, and the savor of my sanity since I don't have to drive in DC traffic everyday to work), our neighborhood is awesome, and we have some pretty great neighbors.

One of those neighbors is also a former coworker, Gillian, who I already knew before we moved into LowesBerg. I actually called her up when we were looking in the area and she had me come over and do a bit of a walkabout with her and her awesome pups one evening, which further sold me on the area.

Meet Gillian (oh - and that's not one of the pups that I was referencing)

IKEA RAST HACK - Mod Podge Entryway Table

First of all, I need to admit that I usually don't trust my DIY ability. And we've already discussed my aversion to shopping at IKEA. So one plus the other meant when I set out to make our sofa table, I actually bought three Rast dressers in case I completely screwed something up in the process. I figured if all went well, I could just return the third box unopened. Or use the scrap wood for something else since I HATE returning things at IKEA.

Second of all, I apologize because this isn't a very photo-rich post. This was kind of a project that I did randomly over the course of a couple weeks here and there, and when I do that I never remember to take pictures!

Anyway - I've already posted about the sofa table and it's success - what I didn't write in that post, was that one of the dressers that I used was missing the front of a drawer. Good thing I had a spare dresser to steal from.  But what that left me with was an opened, and partially used third dresser that I couldn't return. So what to do? Another IKEA Hack - that's what!

... And then I met Nora Roberts

I <3 Nora Roberts. Last weekend was my best friends birthday, and she requested a day spent in Boonsboro at a Nora Roberts book signing. Which is obviously Reason #423 that we're friends.

So we went. And I set an alarm on a Saturday morning and Metro'ed into DC in the early morning to wait in the freezing cold for my best friend to pick me up and take me to the middle-of-nowhere Maryland where we stood in the cold even longer to buy our books and then stood in line in the cold AGAIN to get them signed.

And then it was all worth it because I met Nora Roberts.

Doctoring It

I'm weirdly straight-laced, just ask my sister who has been picking on me because of it for... oh... 25 years. I blame my parents, though "blame" probably isn't the right term. And "thank" doesn't necessarily seem appropriate here either. Whatevs. I am who I am. Thanks to high school I learned to accept that early on. Ha!

ANYWAY this bit of evidence even had me shaking my head at myself afterward.

BACKGROUND: I had a routine check-up today with a new doctor.

EVIDENCE: Excerpt from conversation with my new doctor.

Doc: Do you smoke?
Me: No.
Doc: Do you drink?
Me: Occasionally. I have a glass of wine here and there.
Doc: Do you take drugs?
Me: Only when I have a headache or something. Then I usually take Tylenol or ibuprofen.
Doc: (after a half beat) I meant cocaine, meth, heroin... that sort of thing.
Me: (horrified) Oh! No! No. God no. Definitely not.
(insert nervous laugh)
Me: (5 seconds later while rubbing my sweaty palms on my paper gown) NO.

Oh. And here's a picture of a baby walrus to make your visit worthwhile.