Idol Worship

This weekend I met my absolute favorite home bloggers John and Sherry from Young House Love.  I love their style and check their blog daily to check out the renovations they are doing around their house.  This month they released a book and I was so excited their book tour would come through Dallas. 

http://www.younghouselove.com/

I showed up at the West Elm down the street from my house an hour before the 11:00am signing started and was already at least 100 people back in line.  My friend Kristi joined me and by about 11:20 we had made it into the actual store.  While waiting we were served hot drinks and cookies galore!

Line behind us after about 2 hours of waiting

Line wrapped around the building outside

I was so excited about getting my book signed yet had no clue what I was going to say to these people!  I didn't know if I was going to geek out and come at them chatting a mile a minute or clam up.  I pretty much clammed up.  Luckily Kristi and I walked up together and the conversation turned to Kristi's 8 month pregnant belly.  They signed our books, we had a laugh, Sherry correctly guessed Kristi was having a boy and then we got to pose for a photo.

I was so excited to get home and pour through the book.  It's packed with great home improvement and home decor projects.

They love me!  Ha!  And the other 600+ people that ended up showing up Saturday morning.  It was such a fun experience and great to meet people that I totally idolize when it comes to home renovations.

A Sad Pumpkin Tale

There once was a girl who gathered with her friends to carve pumpkins.  She labored over an intricate design and was pleased with her final product.

"Welcome!" the pumpkin screamed.  The pumpkin looked great amongst all the other creative pumpkins.

The "m" and "e" then fell out, but the girl was able to wedge them back in place.  Everyone decided to move the pumpkins to the front porch steps for a better picture.  No one is sure what happened on that short journey but by the time the pumpkin arrived out front, "c" and "o" had crumpled to pieces leaving only "Welme".

Welme was not long for this world and eventually became Wel.  As if the poor pumpkin was sighing at his own lame existence. 

By the next morning, the raggedy pumpkin had just given up and the girl was sad. 

The pumpkin sat across from beautiful robust pumpkins on the porch feeling like just a shell of a man.  They were constant reminders of what he could of been.  He cowarded behind some young whipper snappers.

And then the sad girl came out of her castle, picked him up, gave him one more glance of disappointment and tossed him in the trash.  The End.

The Toes Know

I'm going to start off by preapologizing for the picture of my feet that I'm about to post.  It has to be done.  Remember back when I realized that my nail color matched the color I was paint my kitchen?

And before this I happened to have grey nails while painting the living room grey?  Crazy stuff, right?  Well last night I glanced down and realized my toes have been the color of my office for the last couple of weeks. 

How freaky is that?  None of these nail polish coordinations were planned.  My blue polish was sent to me in my September Birchbox package.  It's Color Club's Intsa-this.

I guess that means my blue office was meant to be.  My blue toes as well.  Oh, and I highly recommend Color Club polishes.  This is my 4th or so bottle.  These toes survived 4 days in New Orleans...in the rain...wearing flip-flops.  And not one touch-up since.  Impressive.  And again, I apologize for the picture of my feet. 

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my favorite old man!  70 years old today and still having fun!  May we all be so lucky.

Love you, Dad!

Visiting Old Homes

Last weekend I headed to Atlanta, my home from 1999-2001.  It's amazing how much the city has changed in the last 11 years!  I'm still catching up from being gone so not much is going on at my current house this week.  You can check out Atlanta pictures over here:  Life Outside the Loop.

Law & Order: D.O.G.

It's amazing what all you can buy on the internet.  I truly don't know how we survived without it.  If it wasn't for my good friends at Amazon, how else would I have gotten my hands on this:

That's right, it's a doggy DNA kit for the loving mutt in your life.  Monday morning I mailed off a couple of cheek swabs to a lab in Nebraska and in 2-3 weeks I will know Stewart's breed.  Or mix of breeds.

The rescue group gave him the generic label of 'Hound/Lab'.  I'm pretty sure he's going to come back with an impressive mix of a handful of breeds.

Stewart is definitely one of kind, but it will be nice to get a sense of where his temperament and markings come from.  He is also pretty good with his training so far.  We've got 'sit' mastered and occasionally 'stay'.  He's also staying off the couch so far.  Wish I could say the same for my bed at night.

Stewart is many things.  A sweetheart.  A goof ball.  An exercise buddy.  And I can't wait to learn more about him with the DNA results.  There's one thing I'm pretty sure he's not, though...

...a chihuahua.  And if he wants to survive in this house, he should probably stay on Pablo's good side.  Just a tip from someone who's been bitten in the face too many times to count.

I'm Published!

Well, self-published that is.  As a special One Year in the House Anniversary present to myself, I found a company that would turn your blog into a photo book.  I used SharedBook (blog2print.com).  It only took about a week to have my new coffee table book in my hands.

It looks great!  I'm really impressed with the quality of the cover and pages.  You can specify a date range of posts you want included and you can even go through and edit (removing posts, adding pictures, etc).  Sadly, I apparently didn't utilize the edit and proofing features enough.

My House Becomes a House?!?  What?  At first I thought it was their mistake but then I realized it was mine.  I had the blog title section in my settings reading this way by mistake.  Sigh.  If my house is no longer striving to be a home but rather merely a house, does this mean I'm done?  :)  Oh well.  This will just be one of those things I look back and laugh at.

The inside pages read just like the blog.  I think it will be fun to be able to flip through and see the changes I made in my first year at my first house. 

 I promise not to make all my visitors go through the book when they visit.  But I may offer you extra cupcakes if you do.

Tropical Landscaping

No, I didn't re-landscape my back yard into a tropical retreat this weekend.  But I did go visit some great friends and drool over their backyard.  Feel free to check it out over on my travel blog, Life Outside The Loop: Naples, Florida.

One Track Mind

I grabbed new nail polish at the grocery store last weekend.  I just grabbed a new fun color that was under $4 a bottle.  Last night I got around to painting my nails and that's when I noticed...

...I had painted my nails the same color as my kitchen.  I guess when I have a color on my mind it's all I can think about because this was totally unplanned.  I got to thinking about it and the past several weeks my nails had been varying shades of gray, just like the other rooms in my house.

I had been toying with painting my laundry room green.  Guess I better go ahead and do that soon so my nails are ready for St. Patrick's day.

Adler Addict

I am obsessed with Jonathan Adler.  His colors are so bright and vibrant that I pretty much love everything he does.

from JonathanAdler.com



Unfortunately most of his stuff is a bit out of my price range right now.  I do own his books and they were the inspiration for my living room rug.

Thanks to a Neiman Marcus gift card, coupled with an amazing sale, I was able to buy myself one single, tiny Jonathan Adler pillow for my living room.  I love it and only wish I could but more.

Aquarius Zodiac Pillow



If Jonathan Adler ever did a Target collection, I think I'd come unglued!  I would definitely be camping out the night before to score as much as possible.  Do you understand the depth of my obsession?  Good.  Because now you will understand my excitement for the Cottonelle "Respect the Roll" campaign featuring Adler designed toilet paper covers.  I forked over $16 and ordered 4.  Oh yes, I did. 

I have not figured out what I'm going to do with my covers yet but I love them.  Actually I'm using one for covering my backup roll in the Master bathroom, but I envision coming up with creative ways to use the others.

I am not even deterred by the Cottonelle logo on the top of the lids.  I envision the lids being moved to the bottom once put flowers or fruit or screwdrivers (or whatever) in these awesome containers.

So in closing, I thank Jonathan Adler for pairing up with Cottonelle to make his fun designs a little more accessible to me!  It's no Dora Maar Vase, but it's a start.

And seriously, please consider pairing up with Target.  It would have me saying, "Missoni who?"

Weekend Countdown

After a 5 day vacation last week, I've been paying the price this week.  I've had very little time for any home projects and thus very little to blog about this week.  So I will leave you this week with a scene from my office.

Let's hope the Longhorns are as successful this weekend against the Sooners as Mr. Potato Head seems to be.