Life Lately

I have officially been off of work since Friday, thanks to little miss Hurricane Irene. Best part, we never lost power :)  [although our roof started leaking again... ugh!]



Therefore, I have spent the last 4 days hanging out on our rooftop deck with my friend Kari, making ridiculous youtube videos (mocking this hilarious news footage), eating and drinking as many carbs as possible (gym, please!!!!), and watching way too many movies.

Speaking of movies, I highly recommend: Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (I want to buy a juicer now!), Never Let Me Go (one of the strangest movies I've seen in a long, long time - but so so good!), Something Borrowed (because everyone likes a good chick flick) and Hesher (which I watched 2 days in a row - this movie will blow your mind!) I watch enough movies that I honestly think I should cash in and start doing reviews! Wouldn't that be an amazing job?!

We were dog sitting our friends pup Biltmore and they picked him up last night. Sean had to work, so I had 3 adorable pups all to myself! We had a mini photo shoot, of course:

Some Richmonders weren't so lucky, and are still power-less. I can't imagine not having electricity for that long, and I hope everyone still waiting on Dominion is safe & making it through!

After working a full day today and a half a day tomorrow (I'm gettin' my hair diddddd!), I will be off for another 4 days for Labor Day Weekend. For once, it pays to be a social worker ;)

Irene's Theme Song

This is kind of rude, but in all honesty I'm really looking forward to Irene's arrival. I say this, because I don't think Richmond will see much damage... at least I hope not. We live on the flood wall, so we're kind of screwed if the James River decides to flood on us, but other than that..... I'm excited to snuggle on the couch all weekend and watch movies.

Don't you think afternoon naps are the best when it's storming out? I'm looking forward to that!

Here is the perfect song for Irene lounging, in my humble opinion:

I'm obsessed with Bjork. I also think this vlog is the cutest thing I've seen in a very long time!

in all seriousness though, stay safe wherever you are this weekend! :D

i see london, i see france . . .

click for source

I have the most exciting news. Ever.

Sean and I haven't been on a real vacation since our honeymoon three years ago. We've been busy paying our student loans, rent, piles and piles of endless bills, and basically just trying to keep our head above water ever since we've been flung out of college and into the ''real world''.

It's kind of been taking it's toll on us lately, because when all of your money goes to bills and you watch all of your friends go on cruises and tropical getaways you start to get really, really bitter.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!

We've decided that it's impossible for us to go any longer without a fun vacation together and where better to go than our all time most favoritest place in the entire world - - - L o n d o n!!!!!!!! We cuddled on the couch last night and looked up bus passes, museum passes, and reminiced about our trip to London in college where I decided that the only place I could ever live and be happy would be London itself. Because I live in the real world, I realize this isn't going to happen... but at least we can visit!

We're officially going in March, and obviously I couldn't be more thrilled!!!!!! :)



Richmond's Quake!

Today was big news for our little city: we had an earthquake! I've never experienced one before, and I must admit I was pretty confused when my desk, file cabinets, and bookshelf started shaking. Looking back, it's pretty hilarious how panicked we all were. I kid you not, some one was talking about a volcano when we were evacuating our building. In all seriousness, I'm glad nobody was hurt :)

Sad face... my brand new curtains fell (and I can't get them to stay in place anymore!) and smashed my iphone/radio holder. Tragic. I guess it could be much worse.

I'm celebrating tonight with some wine + cheese. Yes, please :)

Oh, and this has been stuck in my head ALL DAY:

Could you feel the earthquake where you were at?

Bedroom Makeover

Ever since Sean and I decided to stay in our loft for another year, I've been thinking up ways to make our place look more like our own. This means gently switching out hand-me-downs that have gotten us through our first few years of marriage, and replacing (some, not all!) them with things that fall more in to place with our personal style.

Like I said a few weeks ago, we've started by giving our bedroom a little makeover. Boy, did it need it!

We live in a loft, which means that the only doors in our entire two-story space are located in the bathroom and on our two closets. I decided that our bedroom needed a little more privacy, and the best way to do that would be to separate it from the rest of the upstairs. We had talked about getting a divider of some kind, and on Friday I had the genious idea to add a curtain. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Before (the view from our bed):

After:

I also added a few personal touches to my dresser:

And added another small side table, which I'm debating on painting a mustard yellow color:

Still needed to complete this bedroom:

1. Some rad wall art... still looking for something large to go over our bed. Possibly something like this, to track our travels :)

2. A cozy rug, like this one.

3. Still looking for something to hang over the door, for the millions of scarves I've collected over the years.This could work.

4. I'm making my own version of this, and filling it with dried flowers in tiny test tube bottles.



next room. . . bath :)



90%

[image found here.]



I can't say enough how much I love this Lawrence Krauss quote:

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.” 

Do you ever think about how incredible it is that we are all here? So many things had to fall into place for each and every one of us to exist as we are at exactly this moment. Crazy mannnnnnn. :)

So whether you are like me and have faith in the Universe and Nature, or you believe in something else like God or Jesus or Ghandi or maybe a mixture of all of it or none at all -- take some time to think about the incredible lottery that you won allowing you life.

And next time that nasty voice creeps into your brain and tells you that you aren't good enough or pretty enough or thin enough or just plain not enough... tell that voice to quiet down, because too many things have fallen into place for you to spend your short time here hating yourself. Too many things have altered so that you can be here. Freakin stars exploded so that you could have fingernails.

And whenever you feel alone, remember that we are all in this together... because we are made up of all the same elements. You are the Universe, and we couldn't get along without you :)

What's Good?

Sometimes life gets so busy, that you forget about how many great things you have going for you! For example:

Last weekend I went to Charlottesville to visit Denise and Stuart -- I had such an amazing time soaking in the mountain scenery, eating way too much of Denise's delicious home cooked meals, and antiquing! We stayed up until almost 3am having one of those amazing drunken heart to hearts we all know and love, and I was so sad when it was time for me to leave! I wish I could spend all of my weekends with these two... trying to convince Sean to move ;)

I sure do love this lady!

In other news, a friend pointed out this amazing website today... you must check it out! I've had just about enough of the media making celebrities look perfect and thinking that I'm not good enough because I don't look a certain way. Feel the same? Well, this website allows you to brows pictures of REAL WOMEN... all shapes and sizes! It's great to look through pics and see how people look without being airbrushed, and it's a great reminder that beauty has no limits.

Also, I'm back on Twitter! Follow me, please :)



breathe in, breathe out.

I have always, always battled with anxiety. That tight feeling comes up into my chest and from there scoops me up and squeezes me until I feel like I am fighting for each breath. When I was a little girl, I used to run out into the woods behind our house for hours. I would gather sticks and leaves and mushrooms, and make tiny knome houses and pretend to be their leader. I would dig my fingers into the clay of the tiny creek's walls, and build tiny bowls and plates and have tea parties all by myself. I would throw my shoes off, so that I could feel leaves crunching under my feet and gather soft dirt between each of my toes. I could breathe out there, and I never wanted to leave that safe place that I had made for myself somewhere between reality and my imagination.

When I was a teenager, I kept my tradition and whenever life got a little too hard I would run as fast as I could to the forest. Usually with my camera in hand, I would balance on fallen trees and lay on my back looking up at the scattered pieces of tree and sky. I would wade knee deep in the creek and collect pebbles or snail shells. I would dig in the dirt and sometimes, pull out blue or green glass bottles who had hidden there for years undisturbed and seen things that I would never know about. I would think about how perfect it would be to live so far away from society, with a soul mate who I had yet to meet. How freeing it must feel to hunt for every meal and work together with nature rather than against it.

But I always had to leave that space; I always had to come back to society.

And now, as a twenty-something, I find myself in the middle of a city. Rather than living in a mountain cabin, I find myself in an industrial loft filled with busy people and too many cars. I love my life, but I can't dissapear into the forest whenever things get hard anymore. First, I have to go to work and clean the house and wash the dishes and feed the dogs and go to sleep and then get up and do it all over again. I have to face life head on, and confront that tightness in my chest -- running from it does not make it dissapear for long.

But when there is time (and there usually is), I am able to pull myself up and out the door and across the bridge until I am right there, right where I need to be. I take off my shoes, and jump from rock to rock to rock until I am on the river's edge. And this is where I do my best thinking. This is where I dream about where I want my life to go and which path I am meant to follow. And while I am laying there, in the middle of nature, I feel accepted and I feel that I am enough. And those are the moments that keep me going, because those are the moments that have always kept me going.

Anniversary + Watermellons + Movies = Image Heavy!

This weekend was awesome from start to finish :) I took Friday off, but somehow it still went by just as quickly as a regular weekend. . .

Friday Sean and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary, and it was honestly the best one out of all ten years - no joke! Sean had to get up and go to a meeting for work that morning, so I got up and fixed him a big breakfast and cleaned up our loft a little while he was gone. When he got home, we picked up subs and went to Movie Land (a 19th Century former locomotive assembly plan turned movie theatre - awesome! and they sell wine!) to see one of my honest to god top 10 favorite movies of all time -- The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I'm a huuuuuuge science fiction nerd, and I grew up loving the 1968 version, so you can imagine how excited I was seeing so many connections between the two movies. . . they did an awesome job! You have to go see the movie! Even if you weren't a fan of the old one, this movie keeps your attention the entire time and the relationship that you build with the main chimp, Ceasar, is incredible! Trust me!

After the movie, we went to Target and got a ton of stuff for our bedroom. Since we won't be able to move into a house this year (or maybe next, who knows) we've decided to make the most of it and re-decorate our loft room by room. What better room to start with on our anniversary ;) ?! We got a ton of new pillows, a comforter, and new sheets. I decided that my bff Denise had some really great advice -- don't settle for cheap things, instead save up and get really nice/expensive pieces that will look better and last a long time. So, Sean and I are currently looking for a shelf to hang on the wall and a nice looking floor lamp, which we'll pick up later at some point. When it's all finished, I'll give a little room tour because to be honest our loft is really amazing because it's an old warehouse (we have an old elevator shaft in our front walkway!) Also, we've decided to strip down my dresser and re-paint it. . . so I'm going to ask around about that & please let me know if you have any suggestions because I've never done anything like that before!

When we got home from Target, we got all dressed up and polished off a bottle of wine (classy, yes?) before heading out for dinner at Secco Wine Bar. Neither of us had ever been to this place before, and it's safe to say we fell in love. We got a bottle of wine and 3 cheeses and 3 meats and talked the night away. We even got dessert, an ice cream sandwich from heaven made out of waffle cones and chocolate hazlenut ice cream. It felt really awesome having a deep, wine induced heart to heart with my husband and when we got home (don't worry, we took a cab!) we sat and talked for another hour or so -- I love that we did that!

Check out how amazing our dinner was (sorry, low lighting!):



We spent the majority of Saturday laying around watching movies (because we were both pretty hung over and sluggish from Friday) but Sunday we met up with a few of our good friends and ventured to Carey Town for the annual Watermellon Festival. This festival is really cool, because the streets are filled with food venders, games, moon bounces, and other people selling things like clothes and jewelry. One of the tattoo shops was even giving out watermellon tattoo's for $40! I loved people watching, because everyone had on their watermellon gear and all of the resteraunts had watermellon flavored drinks!

To beat the heat, our group got a table at Galaxy Diner - I am obsessed with their fried pickles and space theme! We all got burgers and watermellon jello shots, and I also ordered a watermellon mimosa which in my opinion was absolutly disgusting, but I drank it anyway in the spirit of the festival!



Afterwards, we walked around a little bit but it was so hot and unbearable that we decided to hit up the Byrd for a movie. Unfortunantly, we had to wait 3 hours for the next flick, so we walked to Three Monkey's for more drinks and fun.

Side note: Sean got his picture taken and is going to be featured on a Richmond fashion blog - we've been laughing about it all night, but seriously he always looks amazing! Trust me, I'll be posting a link once it's up and bragging on him ;)

In case you were wondering, I'm obsessed with this shot - it's called a lemon drop and it's delicious!

 This is cheese that they light on fire! I ate wayyyyyy too much of this. . . but it was probably the best thing I've ever tasted ever!!!!

Finally, we left the bars and headed back to the Byrd - one of the coolest places in Richmond! It was originally built in the 20's and you can watch movies there for $2.00! We saw Bridesmaids, which was hilarious but not as hilarious as it could have been, in my opinion. But anyway, I talked a little bit about this theatre in this post about Richmond, and if you haven't been and are ever in the area you should definintly check it out. I totally think it's haunted, and can't wait to watch scary movies there in October :)



I'm excited to get this week over with, because on Friday I'm headed to Charlottesville to see Denise and Stuart (and their NEW HOUSE!) What did you do this weekend?



More Wedding Pics :)

Because it was such an amazing day, I thought I would share a few pictures from our wedding!

 

[outside of the church - newlyweds!]

 [our first dance -- Billie Holiday's 'Georgia On My Mind']

 

[us with Sean's parents]

[our wedding party - we felt/feel so loved!]

[me with the guys.. that blond hunk is my LITTLE bro!]

 

[me & my girls]

 

[us with my parents!]

 

[father daughter dance, i still cry every time i hear the song 'landslide']

''sometimes, in an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale''

[quote I put in Sean's yearbook sr. year of high school - I first read it on a Hallmark card!]

Thank you all for the anniversary wishes and especially those of you pointing out funny memories! I'm glad I can look back and laugh at some of the things [such as the salon incident]... because they sure weren't funny at the time!

xx

Happy Anniversary, Sean!!! :)

Around this time three years ago today, I was waking up in my bedroom for the very last time. I looked around, soaking it all in, and paying attention to every detail: the pink and blue stripes on the wall, my old dresser, my mismatched blankets (collected from the past four years at college, where I always insisted on purchasing new sheets and comforters). I sat there in silence for a few minutes, surprised at how calm I was. The calm before the storm, I guess?

I ate breakfast with my mom and dad, and then my best friend Brittany arrived. Side note: Brittany, what would I have done without you on this day?! I say this, because when we pulled up to the salon where I was scheduled to have my hair and nails done, there was a big ugly sign on the door which read ''CLOSED''. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell us that they had gone bankrupt and closed up shop. Awesome.

Brittany is a life saver, really she is, because she is full of ideas and always stays positive. She suggested that we try the salon she had been going to for several years now, and I have no idea how this happened but on a Saturday morning they actually had a spot open for me! We went down the street and got our nails done, and Brittany even left to pick me up a smoothie..... wow, you really are amazing Brittany!

Anyway, somehow it all worked out. I don't really remember a lot of the details, but I do remember feeling a lot of anxiety when the hair stylist suggested that I dye my hair so that none of my roots would be showing when we took pictures -- I don't usually panic about hair, but for some reason I was nervous.... maybe it was everything becoming more of a reality, who knows! But it worked out really well and my hair looked amazing :)

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I remember eating lunch at Burger King (Double Whopper with large fries... what can I say, I eat when I'm nervous!), stopping by the art gallery to check on the decorations (it looked amazing, and fun fact.. we now live across the street from that gallery!), and finally meeting everyone at the church - all 200 of them, wowzers.

I remember my mom scolding me, on my wedding day, for sneaking champagne into the church ;) and laughing until my belly hurt while everyone put on make up and got dressed together. Having all of my best girlfriends around me was one of the greatest feelings in the world. To all of you: Gina, Denise, Mallory -- even you Allison and Ashley -- I really appreciate you making me laugh when I was freaking out, and for supporting me when I really needed you!

When I finally met Sean at the end of the isle, I just remember feeling like this was exactly where I was meant to be. I sobbed through my vows, but whatever. I was just happy to be marrying my best friend in the whole world. I honestly cannot believe that it's been three years already. It hasn't been an easy three years, or an always fun three years... but it has most definintly been three years full of love and learning and laughing and crying and just being together. I have never loved anyone as much as I love my husband, and that is the truth.

Happy Anniversary, Sean!! This is just the beginning!! :)

a day at the beach!

Saturday, me and this girl packed up my car and drove to Virginia Beach for the day. This is the one and only picture that I snapped, because we were having entirely too much fun drinking margaritas and other mixed drinks while hanging out in the water and getting some much needed sun. I can't believe this was the first time I've been to the beach all summer, we really are so so lucky to be only an hour and a half away!

It's so nice to get away every now and then, and who doesn't love a girl's only trip!

I'm so happy that today's August 1st. This summer has been entirely too hot, and I'm more than ready to welcome my favorite season of all : Fall! I can't wait for crunchy leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, cardigans, and all things Halloween!

Tomorrow is me and Sean's 3 year wedding anniversary, and the following week I'm going to Charlottesville to hang out with Denise & see her new h o u s e! This means that I have two 4 day weeks back to back, and that makes me rrreeeaalllllyyy happy :)

How will you wrap up the summer this year?