Post inspired by Lyla.

a Lyla update:

-Lyla has learned "Sit," "Down," "Come," "Fetch," and just yesterday she started understanding "Stay." I'd say that's progress for a 16 week old little one!

-Her favorite things of the moment are shoe boxes that can she tear to shreds and ice. I do believe she's teething. She also really hearts air vents. She will lay on them and sleep most of the day, and she looks pretty stinkin' cute doing it.

-Her biggest struggles are sleeping late and an occasional slip up in housebreaking. She knows to go outside, but if you're not by the door when she heads that way she's going to go anyway. Sleeping is interesting. She started out waking up at 5. That has now moved to 7, praise the Lord. AND! Huge breakthrough. She will now go back in her crate as long as you take her out to pee at 7 and sleep till 10. Whoa, and, as a result, I feel like a totally new person!

-She came to me weighing 18 lbs at 13 weeks. We are now at 16 weeks, and she's up to 25 lbs. Yikes.

-Right now she is sitting next to me chewing her dental hygiene rope. Such a good girl!

Anyway, overall I'd say great strides. I definitely was not prepared for how much work this would be (oh yesterday...thanks for listening to my complaints, Anna), despite all my research, but she is growing into a pretty great dog. Here are a few pics of us. Lyla did not understand the beeps the computer made when it counted down to take a picture, hence her confused expression in several of these...







That's all folks.

Pick a style, any style...

Okay so I have the somewhat daunting task of decorating my first real grown up apartment rapidly approaching (with the help of Kmac, of course). That being said, I have spent way too much time on the internet looking for things that I like and would be willing to spend my hard earned, grownup money on. The conclusion I have reached: I have on idea whatsoever as to my design aesthetic. I am writing this hoping for a little help from the world o blogs.

Here are things I have found and LOVE...

The perfect non-traditional coffee table:


An old-timey coat/hat rack. How perfect for by your door? Hang your cutest most wearable coats (and maybe a dog's leash) and make it a statement in the room, not just a functional piece.


This room is a little too square for me, but look at the huge awesome lamp, yes please!


Lanterns. To decorate a long wooden table in a hallway or even place with some greenery as a center piece on a dining room table?


Yeah I could definitely work with this vanity.


This bed is pretty traditional, but with white linens and beautiful colorful pillows, i.e. something like the second and third pictures below, i think so!






I love this rustic-inspired mirror collage too.


Love the shelf in the middle of this anitquey bookshelf.


And, finally, wallpaper. A word I never though I would utter as a part of my "design aesthetic," and yet, here I am. But seriously, how cool would it be to have one wall of a living room with one of these patterns...




So, those are pics of lots of things that I like and would be THRILLED to have in my house/apt one day. What does that make my style? I have no idea. If you have pieced it together from my pics, please leave a comment. Shopping for this stuff is so overwhelming, so maybe if I had a direction I'd feel more prepared. Thanks bloggy peeps.




More on two fantastic wedding weekends and Lyla in the next post coming soon!

Pics in this post are from Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, and Elle Decor, to name a few.

A tribute to saymoyo.

As most of you who read this know, my rooms and bestie will be getting MARRIED to her super cool fiance in a mere 5 days. Since the girl I became best friends with 4 years ago is about to become a wifey and teacher with a whole new last name, I thought I'd provide a highlight reel of our friendship throughout college...

One of the very first days we ever hung out...RUSH. yikes. and look how young!




The day my rooms helped me through a breakup by suggesting we go to Claire's and dress up like crazy people...










This is one of my favorites! We were both having terrible days freshman year, so we decided to go try on heinous wedding gowns with zero makeup on after a splurge at Target. Observe the results:



And to end the freshman year highlights, our finale road trip to a fancy dinner out with just about all our friendlies...


Now the start to sophomore year, and one of my favorite pics...






Sophomore year was also the year Rooms cut her hair short!













And lastly, sophomore year was the year Sarah met the love of her life...

Just kidding! Stuart could never play golf or guitar quite as well as you, Chris, so I guess you won out in the end.



Junior Year! The year we upgraded to our awesome apartment, I cut my hair short, and Rooms went brunette.










The best trip of my life also occurred Junior Year, see Kate and Rooms in NYC...

Shout out to the rest of our party of five! That trip was unreal.













And finally, senior year, starting with the awesome purple party Sarah and Hill threw me in the summer leading up to our final semesters...





NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP! So much school spirit Rooms. I really love this one.








Last but certainly not least, engaged Sarah and all her bridesmaids!


Rooms, I honestly never expected to meet a friend like you. You have opened my eyes to so many things, taught me how to relax, and shared my obsession with celebrity gossip, i.e. Blake Lively, for four fantastic years. I can't say too much because I have to save it for my toast! But, sweet Sarah Yo, I can't wait to see all the fun pics we'll take and memories we'll make (I rhymed!) when you're Sarah Jackson. I'm also pretty confident Chris will be almost as awesome of a roommate. Congratulations Rooms!

And to everyone else, thanks for putting up with the inordinate number of pictures in this post.

Happenings.

Happening #1: GRADUATION

What a long ceremony for a mere 10 seconds where a guy says your name and you walk across a stage. But still, monumental life event, so I guess, blogworthy.

I was extremely lucky to have much of my extended family in attendance. I was able to see my cousins and grandparents from Georgia, as well as my other set of grandparents from Mobile. It turned into quite a wonderful day after the boringness that was the ceremony. Shout out to Katie K, as she was sitting almost directly behind me throughout the entire thing! Along with Katie, a HUGE shoutout to Kmac whom I could see from across the room and who videotaped me in the exact moment i graduated, what an awesome friend/roommate! It was also really neat to celebrate with my fellow nurses, I think we may be the most psyched group of graduates, besides the engineers, of course...


Happening #2: GRACIE'S DEBUT INTO SOCIETY



My sister is the prettiest 16 year old I know. She was a little nervous bout this whole walk across a long stage in front of hundreds of people thing, but she did it with so much grace and poise. I'm ridiculously proud of her and the awesome young woman she's becoming (I'm starting to talk like an old lady already, boo becoming an alumni!). She even let me do her makeup! Which involved me sitting on her while she sat on the toilet, which David took ten thousand pictures of because he thought it was hilarious.

Here is my handsome brother who is making his debut too, his, however, is just his blog debut, which he will probably kill me for whenever he finds this...



Anyway, it was a wonderful day/night for our entire family.


Happening #3: LYLA

She's here! She's here! She's here!




Here she is sleeping at my feet as a type these very words. To say I'm obsessed would be an understatement, just ask Hill.



That's all for now. Be prepared to see lots more pup pics in the future. Happy graduation/being through with exams everyone!

On a more serious note.

Okay so remember that first post I wrote since revamping the blog, saying how I'm really struggling with getting caught up in all the earthly happenings in my life these days...well you won't believe what I read last night. Actually you probably will because God works in spectacular, ironic ways all the time...

I've been reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, and I came across something so incredibly simple that made an enormous impact. Screwtape (old devil) writes in a letter to his nephew (little devil) Wormwood regarding the man they are working hard to drive away from his newfound devotion to the Christian faith:

"Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself (this would be our Heavenly Father for those who haven't read this yet) we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him toward themselves."

It's exactly what the enemy (the real enemy who doesn't deserve to be capitalized, not my sovereign God, whom Screwtape refers to as his "Enemy") has been attempting in my life recently. I have been focused completely on myself, on what's coming up next, on all the cool things happening now. "I", "I", "I", "my", "my", "my", anyone noticing a pattern here?

First of all, how dare the enemy do such a thing? Secondly, it has been working. My sinful nature runs so deep it is beyond my comprehension why our God still constantly seeks after us. As soon as I recognized my sin and asked for forgiveness, my slate was wiped clean by my Savior. My God can take my terrible actions and turn it them the most beautiful thing in the whole world, GRACE.

Not sure if this helps anyone else, but it has made a huge difference in my spiritual life so I thought I'd share. Like the saying goes, the first step to healing is recognizing your faults. Well, with a little help from the Lord via C.S. Lewis, I have noticed a big one. Now, I do realize that a blog is kind of selfish in its mere existence because why do I assume people want to read my ramblings every few days, but that's why I hope to use this thing for the betterment of His kingdom whenever I can.

Can't believe I'm leaving this town in a few short days, more on that to come!

P.S. I am only about twenty pages in, but if you want a good read, I highly recommend this one! Happy weekend!

Not orange, well mostly.

Latest happening: spray tan.

This was necessary as a run-through before Sarah's wedding, for which I am hoping to have some kind of color to my skin. Now I have been sprayed before, but it was by a person not a machine. It also led to me looking super orange for far too many days. Needless to say I was a little nervous about trying it again. Fortunately, Sarah already did her run through and told me all about Versa Spa tanning. It has pink undertones instead of orange, brilliant!

So Kmac and I went to the tanning place, in the rain. That was a mistake. Actually tanning in the booth was hysterical. Kristin and I yelled back and forth to each other to make sure we were doing everything right as we applied blending creme (don't ask) and struck the four poses necessary to tan your entire body, as instructed by the lovely voice in the box. This is REALLY nerve-wracking because if you mess up you're totally hosed. Or at least a half of your body is hosed. Thus we were sprayed, and quite successfully I might add! BUT, remember that rain, the epic rain that occurred all day Sunday, oh yeah you can't get your spray tan wet AT ALL for 6 hours. I wish someone had a video camera because the sweet girls working the store that day wrapped towels around Kmac's legs as I wrapped a raincoat around my own. Then one of them was so wonderful and actually moved our car up onto the curb to let us waddle in unharmed. The boys watching all of this transpire were dying out laughing, and with good reason, we looked like big dorky penguins. Anyway, somehow their method actually worked! Thanks awesome tanning salon girls! However, we forgot that once we arrived back at my apt, which is garageless, we would have to venture back out in the rain. I don't know how we did it, but somehow we made it inside with only a few splashes to the feet that are mostly unnoticeable now.

Only one minor downfall...



Yep, that's my right hand. Complete with lots o brown splotches. Apparently I did not understand the instructions about that blending creme.

Still, overall a wonderful experience, and I can't wait to actually be a human color in all the pics for my rooms's wedding!

19 days till the nuptials, congratulations Sarah and Chris!!!

Rainy day finds.

It's raining, and apparently will be for the foreseeable future. This leads to a day spent searching the internet for fun things and me wanting way too many unnecessary items that I will probably never be able to actually purchase. Such as...

My rooms and I have made a deal that upon our 30th birthdays, we will purchase a pair of truly fantastic shoes. Mine will be Louboutins, hers will be Manolo Blahniks. After some searching, the top contender for the moment is this shoe with a subtle hint of purple. Obviously, I'm obsessed.


I have always been a shoe freak, and when I started watching Sex and the City, Carrie's shoes just took my love to a whole new level. Here are two more...



Don't even ask me how much they cost.




Also! Could I please have a closet like this to display them...



Just kidding. That's a little obsessive. But maybe this one?



In my dreams.
But really I like this one a lot.

More about adventures in spray tanning with Kmac coming soon! Happy Sunday.


*All my images are from Bergdorf's and Instyle's websites. Thanks Xtina and 13 for the inspiration.