WWW #8

Hey, not bad now huh?  I’m giving you a twofer today!  2 posts in one day!!!!  Ha ha ha.  So we are to week 8 of my CHALLENGE to myself.  So, let’s get started.

Monday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my black pants, a red sleeveless blouse that flares at the waist and a black sweater.  I’m also wearing my red silver Brighton cross/heart jewelry and a headband with a big bow on it. 

Tuesday:

This was probably my favorite outfit for the week.  I’m wearing my ivory pants, my favorite ivory ruffled blouse and a dark purple ruffled sweater that I belted with an ivory belt.  The shoes are a dark purple as well and the jewelry is my gold and ivory set from Premier jewelry (I love this set!)

Wednesday:

I’m still not sure of this outfit and now that I see the picture I doubt I’ll wear it again…ever!  Well, maybe I’ll just wear it as a shirt instead of a dress.  Man, it looks short, doesn’t it?  Anyway, as you can see it’s a VERY short dress that I got from Avon.  I wore it with blue tights and my blue heels.  Yes, definitely it’s a shirt from now on!

Thursday:

I’m wearing my pink ruffled blouse with a pink long sleeve sweater and brown pants with my brown Sperry’s.  Totally cute and comfy! 

I don’t have an outfit for Friday because I worked Thursday until noon, went home, came back in at 6:00 pm and worked until Friday morning at 10:00…needless to say I spent the rest of the day Friday in my pajamas in bed asleep. 

OK…it’s official, it’s definitely withdrawals from shopping.  I can just hear the Mall calling my name!  How much longer can I last?  I need encouragement!

WWW #7

Wow, first of all I’m just sorry it’s taken me awhile to get these posts done.  I really have no excuse…yet again!  I’m just a slacker, what can I say.  If you are new, this POST explains this.  So, without further adieu, let’s get down to week number 7.

Monday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my khaki skirt, a navy sleeveless blouse and my multi-colored jacket from Coldwater Creek.  I’m also wearing brown boots and tights.  The thing about this day that is so different than others is I curled my hair…can you tell?  I actually slept in rollers to do it.  It’s the only way my hair will hold a curl that it didn’t make on it’s own that is!  ha ha ha.  I really did like it but sleeping on those things is torture!

Tuesday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my gray slacks, a burgundy shirt, a scarf that pulls all the colors together, a gray sweater and my burgundy shoes.  I had to take this picture in my room because it was time for me to take the picture and go and Hot Rod was in the bathroom at the time naked.  I decided to keep this blog G Rated.  Your welcome!

Wednesday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my black silk dress from Ann Taylor along with a cute pinkish sweater from Target that I belted with a skinny black belt.  Tights and black boots were the footwear of choice for the day.  I really liked this outfit.

Thursday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my brown pants, a white shirt and my denim with tweed trim jacket.  I wore my brown Sperry loafers for the shoes.  Pretty casual.

Friday:

We just got our new United Way shirts (we get a free shirt if we contribute 30 minutes of time each pay check to United Way every year) on Thursday so I decided to take it casual again and wear the shirt with just black pants and my black Sperry’s.

I think I’m going through withdrawals from no shopping but I’ve made it almost a full 2 months without doing any shopping…AT ALL! 

Valentine’s Day Dinner

The hubs and I haven’t gone out for Valentine’s Day in YEARS!  I mean why would we?  Why would you stand in line for hours to get a mediocre meal that is overpriced when you could do this instead?  Behold, our dinner…

Our dinner consisted of a tomato and basil bruschetta with parmesan cheese for an appetizer.  For our main entrée, we have filet mignon with herb butter, grilled lobster tail, baked potatoes, and sautéed asparagus.  We also had a nice shiraz wine with the dinner and a dirty martini with the appetizer.

For dessert…

We had crème brulee with chocolate covered strawberries and pineapple.  We paired it with a “Valentini” (a martini made with whipped cream vodka and white chocolate Godiva liqueur)

Everything was divine!  We made it all except for the chocolate covered fruit and Hot Rod just picked those up on the way home.  It was a perfect dinner and evening spent with the man of my dreams.

WWW #6

We are at Week 6 of my “Never Repeating” goal for the year.  This POST explains what I’m doing in case you are scratching your head and wondering what is she talking about.  So, let’s move on to last week’s clothing choices.

First of all, there is no outfit for Monday.  I called in sick and never made it out of my jammies that day.  I decided to spare you all that not so wonderful treat to the eyes!  You are welcome!

Tuesday was Valentine’s Day so I wanted to dress up for the holiday.  I usually do wear something very sweet hearty to commemorate the holiday of love.  This year was no different. 

I wore my red skirt, my red turtleneck shell and an open crochet sweater.  I wore it with my scroll heart Brighton jewelry, red shoes, and my white thigh high hose.  I also put my hair up with a bumpit to give it a little more volume.  I really loved the outfit but the day turned to crap at work.  We had a power outage and I was running back and forth from the data center to a make-shift command center so the thigh high’s had to be ditched early on.  Oops.  Bare legs it was instead, but it still looked ok I think. 

Wednesday…

I wore my gray pants and this gray printed tunic.  Very casual and comfy.  I wore them with my gray suede shoes and my fancy Brighton jewelry to give it some bling.

Thursday…

This was my favorite outfit for the week.  I wore my winter white slacks with a ruffled winter white shell, and my gold sparkly sweater.  I belted it with the winter white belt.  The shoes are a taupe and winter white heel…but the taupe actually took on a gold sheen when worn with this outfit.  I wore it with gold jewelry.

Friday…

I’m wearing my black knit pants with this gray and turquoise pull-over sweater.  I wore a gray cami under the sweater.  The jewelry was a perfect match with bold chunky turquoise and black beads.  The shoes are my comfy black patent Sperry’s.

WWW #5

Yep, it’s another week and another WWW post.  If you are new, this POST will explain it all.  I thought I would take this week to give an update on my goals thus far as well as posting my pictures of last week’s outfits.  I’m actually really proud of myself, I went the entire month of January and managed to not spend ANY money at all with one exception.  I did buy the rug for the living room but other than that, I didn’t buy anything else all month and this month is looking just as good.  Now, when I say I didn’t spend any money we all know that is not exactly the truth.  I mean I had to buy gas for my car and food, but I didn’t buy any non-essentials for the entire month.  YAY!  So far so good.  My hubby told one of my daughters the other day “I don’t know if she’s just hiding it somehow or what but your mom hasn’t been spending ANY money.”  Man, that felt good to have him notice. 

So, let’s get back to last week’s outfits.  To start with on Monday, I wore this:

I’m wearing my black and gray dress fro New York & Co with my black shrug with it.  I wore black tights and my black buckle boots.  I figured out what I don’t wear those boots very often too.  They have buckles on the back of the cuff at the top of the boot and they are super uncomfortable when you try to cross your legs. 

Tuesday’s outfit:

My black long pants with black sleeveless turtleneck and my Calvin Klein jacket.  The jacket actually came with a skirt but I thought it looked good with the pants too.  The wide belt came with the jacket as well.  I’m wearing my black and silver Brighton jewelry with it.

Wednesday:

This was my favorite outfit for the week and it may seem a little young for me but I still liked it and I felt cute and young.  I’m wearing my black on black polka dot dress from Target with my pink sweater with braided and beaded trim.  I also wore capri length leggings and my altogether wonderful pink Calvin Klein heels.  I wore my hair different as well.  I pulled my bangs up and pinned them back with bobby pins and put my hair in 2 low pony tails.  I wore my pink Brighton jewelry with it all.

Thursday:

Man, I didn’t realize how awful this picture looked until just now.  I swear I look about 9 months pregnant in this picture.  I sure hope I didn’t look like that in real life!  YUCK!  I’m wearing my black knit pants with my white blouse and hot pink velvet vest.  I’m also wearing my black patent Sperry’s.  I thought I looked cuter than this and I hope I did!

Friday:

I’m wearing my comfy brown pants, a brown with white polka-dot shirt and my pink pull-over sweater.  Super comfy and casual.  I paired it with my brown Sperry loafers. 

Another week down!  Hope you had a good week.

Inspiration!

I often wonder where designers get their inspiration when they design/re-design a space.  Have you wondered that too?  I watch shows like Divine Design and wonder “how did she come up with that?”  Well, I think I finally have done it!  I found some inspiration and I want to share it with you from the very beginning.

The start of this story is actually quite sad and I’m hoping to get through this first part without crying…again!  Right before Thanksgiving we lost a dear family member in our family.  My beautiful boy dog Charlie passed away.  It was very sudden and very upsetting to me and my hubby!  Here is Charlie in a better time…

On Monday before Thanksgiving we were going to bed and he started making a very funny noise.  It’s like he was choking or coughing or something.  He seemed to settle down and I didn’t think much more of it.  When we got up in the morning it was awful!  There was blood everywhere.  We still don’t know what happened.  We have theories but bottom line is he basically bled to death.  We rushed him to the vet on Tuesday morning but before we got there he died in the car.  We still miss him every day.  Sometime during the night he went to the living room and he bled out…on our living room rug.  There was no recovering the rug and to be totally honest, I didn’t even want to try.  We just rolled up the rug and threw it away.  We had it a very long time anyway and it was getting to the point where we needed to get rid of it anyway.  I didn’t want any reminder of losing our beautiful boy either so out it went.  I hope you don’t mind me sharing this part of the story but it’s kind of an important part of it.

So, let’s move on to the better part and happier part of the story.  We waited until after Christmas and I started looking for a replacement rug.  Man, there are a lot of rugs out there and when you start looking you just never realized just how many types, colors, designs, etc. that there are!  Also, my living room is really large so proportion is a very big thing.  A simple 5 X 7 rug would look lost and and very inappropriate in the room.  I really needed at least an 8 X 10.  Well, my daughter called me and asked me if I had heard of this website called rugsusa.com.  OMG!  They have so many rugs and I’ll admit I got lost on the site and just looked, looked, and looked for days.  Well, I finally found one I really loved but the price…well, let’s just say “uh, no!”.  It was $1800 for the 8X10 size.  No way could I afford that.  I really wanted it but I just couldn’t justify that, especially right after Christmas.  Here is the rug I really wanted:

I loved it but not at $1800.  So, I kept looking while keeping in mind my daughter’s living room rug that I also loved.  She got hers at Pier One and I really loved it as well and actually wouldn’t have minded it but it didn’t come in a large enough size.  Here is her rug:

As you can see, my taste varies greatly!  Well, I finally found one on the rugsusa.com website that 1.  I loved, and 2. was priced in my price range.  I ordered it and discovered it was also 20% off with free shipping and no tax.  Total price?  $249!!!!  I ordered it and got it within a week.  I put it in my living room and I’m in LOVE!  It added just the right pop of color and now I have my inspiration for the rest of the room.  I’m going to take the colors from the rug and pull them out and incorporate them into the rest of the room.  I’d like to use the blues especially.  Here is the rug in the room now:

So, this is now my inspiration for the rest of the room.  My plans (once this stupid shoulder heals and I can actually do some of the things I want to do!) include:

1.  Replace all draperies with some lighter colored fabrics

2.  Paint the walls a cool, soothing tan or blue…or maybe even both

3.  Scrape the popcorn off the ceiling and paint it as well.

4.  Replace some of the brown leather furniture with some lighter colors.

5.  Replace one of the end tables with my 2 tiered table I rescued from the Salvation Army (after I refinish it that is)

6.  Re-arrange and replace some of the artwork on the walls.

7.  Paint the top of the coffee table a nice off-white to make it stand out a little more with the iron frame and wicker baskets.

Well, what do you think of my inspiration?  It is such a big change from what we had before.  Our previous rug was very muted colors and this one is just so bright and cheerful.  It is my jumping off point and I’m super excited to take that jump!  I’ll share more as I go along.  Like I said, I’m still waiting for my shoulder to heal before I can even start but keep in touch, I promise I will be doing something soon!  (or kill myself trying…just kidding…sort of!) 

Have a great weekend!

Scrapbooking!!!!

I don’t think I’ve even mentioned before on this blog that I’m actually a scrapbooker.  I have been doing it for years actually and it’s something I really, really enjoy!  Unfortunately, my hobby has not been in the forefront of my life lately though and I can’t even remember the last time I scrapbooked for myself.  Well, that changed last weekend.  I actually went into my scrapbook room, sat down and enjoyed myself and scrapbooked…for MYSELF!  I did do some scrapbooking for Christmas but that was for other people.  I made a mini-album for my mom, Hot Rod’s mom, Brandi’s mother-in-law, Brandi, and also myself.  The album is Sidney’s first year.  Each double layout was a month and had a calendar picture of Sidney that Brandi takes each month, along with one more random picture from that month.  They turned out very cute and everyone was really happy with them.  Me, however, turned out to be stressed out city just to get them done in time for everyone to get them for Christmas.  So, this past Saturday was the first time I actually sat in my room and just scrapped for myself.  I had already printed the pictures I wanted to get done, namely our pictures from the trip to New York we took last summer.  I thought I would share the few I got done.  I didn’t get many done, actually I just got to the first day we were there, but hey…it’s a start!

The first page of the album will be this page:

Next, is our first day there, our arrival and getting acquainted with our neighborhood:

I also have a layout with pictures I took of the apartment we rented:

The last page I got done is our first full day there.  This layout has many more pictures than you can see though.  I have several pictures layered in sleeves on both pages that you can flip through to see more pictures.  Kind of hard to see here but it allows me to get more pictures on the page than will show.

I have a bunch more to do but at least I got started and man it felt good!