Thursday, February 28, 2013

Our Wall Collage

I have been wanting to do this for a while and I am so happy that Adam helped me get it done. He even picked out some of the items at goodwill on his lunch break. (People, I have opened Pandora's box on that one-- He is an artist machine these days-- wanting to refinish furniture, paint a million paintings, picking up items to decorate- It's cute).

Our apartment has an open layout so we have one long wall that goes from our living room right into our kitchen cabinets. Adam had had his four Chicago paintings on the wall but it didn't fit the space very well. (We still love those paintings and have since moved them to our room so we can see them every morning when we wake up ;)

We had been working on this last week but we had to create little "shelves" for a couple of the items that didn't have ways to hang so we had to wait till the shelves were finished in order to finish the collage. When I came home Tuesday night, Adam surprised me by having it all finished. We still need to fill the photo frames but this is it for now. (One of the frames I am waiting for this illustration to come in from my recent obsession, Katie Daisy ( She is a 24 year old Illustrator who not only has mad skills but also has had a gigantic amount of sales on her Etsy site. Over 21,000!!!).

 (Ignore the mess; with the recent projects- our stuff has multiplied everywhere!)







We are into nautical things these days since we live so close to the lake. So we've been gathering items and they're mostly all in this collage. Some of the things we're from our wedding, some from friends, some new items, and some from goodwill. I'm really excited that it's done ;)




Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Weather in the Great White North

I was going to blog more about stuff today but unexpected weather kind of delayed that. I want the winter to end. Not because I can't take the cold- I don't care. I can deal with that. I am getting sick of snow. It makes it hard to get anywhere. We are supposed to get even more snow on Friday. Boo ; /

Anyways, back to yesterday. The weathermen thought that the snow would start around 3 pm and maybe get an inch and then dump snow on us last night. This was/is not true. It did start at 3 but it dumped on us right then and there. We had 2-4 inches of heavy snow that was still coming down and 40 mph gusts of wind when the commute started for most people. No matter which way I tried to get home, it was jam packed. It took me almost 2 hours to get home.


(halfway during my trip; No worries, Mom- I didn't technically do this while driving as you can see in the video below)


Here is a little video half way during my trip

(correction: I live 12.9 miles away from work; my bee)

No worries though. I got home and Adam had gotten me flowers, had gotten something at the grocery store that I had missed on my list, and finished our wall collage, which I will blog about tomorrow ;) He is a good one ;)


(Ignore the dirty dish in the sink. He couldn't find a vase hehe so cute)

I'm not sure how much snow we have this morning but instead of just tapering off, the lake wanted in on some action and added some lake effect snow to the already bigger-than-expected storm. I'll have to see the damage when I get outside.



Tuesday, February 26, 2013

My Dresser

Okay guys, I am really excited about this find. Remember when I said, we found this at a thrift store? I said I liked it but wasn't sure if we had room for it (even though we really needed it) and Adam being the awesome husband he is, said we definitely did and we bought it on the spot! Well, with my first day of my job looming in front of me last week, I kicked it into gear to get this bad boy done so we could get our apartment more organized. And am I ever glad I did. It took a lot of work but I am really giddy about the results. Our initial thought was that it was all wood and that I could stain the top and paint the rest of it white. This would have looked really good however, the top is not real wood while the rest of the frame seems to be.


 If you can see there are all kind of different lines going on. I think the trim is wood while the top is maybe plywood covered with veneer and the back is who knows what. I mean the side is who knows what either but I don't care.


The top coats did not come off very well at all so I just roughed it up with the sander and called it a day.



I think the original color had been cream and then the previous owner had painted/spray painted it yellow (why? I don't know? It looked bad) and they didn't even remove the hardware which is why it had paint in all the grooves and you can see the "leaf" imprints on the draw because the hardware had been left on (you can see it especially on the top drawer).


It was way too cold to do anything on our balcony but then Adam and I remembered that we have one parking space in the HEATED garage. Lucky for us too, we are the closest to the heater and are on the end so we have extra space ;) Perfect for parking the car and working on a dresser.  So I borrowed the community grocery cart to take all the drawers down to sand in the middle of the garage where the only outlet was in the whole 45 space garage. So many stares but I didn't care because I got the job done.


I decided to paint the dresser all white and spray paint the hardware a dark color. I think it's like a metallic dark gray/brown/black-- not really sure but I really like it! I love the contrast and the hardware it antique-y looking. Love it! Also I love the flower pattern on the top row of drawers and the character that the legs have ;)


 So cute right? We are going to add some pictures on the wall and maybe a tall vase to add height on this end of the room but I love, love it so far!!!

Monday, February 25, 2013

March Madness


(We ended Saturday night watching the Marquette game at a bar for Brian's birthday)


This is Adam and I's favorite part of the year. We spent the  weekend watching so much basketball and I luhooved it. I watched listened to it during work, after work, all day Saturday, and most of Sunday.

In anticipation of all the madness, I made a bracket (as I'm sure many of you did). I really wanted to do it without Adam's help and to crush his soul with my skills so I made it while he was away at curling. I did my research (a lot of good that ever does except to impress said boy) The next morning, as I was getting ready and he was just getting out of bed, I casually asked him how his bracket was coming.

Me: Did you do your bracket yet?
Stud: not yet
Me: oh yeah? Well, I have Davidson beating Marquette
Stud: Why would you do that?
Me: Well, they're on a 17 game winning streak, are 80% from the foul line and close to 40% from the 3-point line. I mean Marquette has good defense but they just leave points at the foul line, have long scoring dry spells and on a good day are 30% from the 3-point line.
Stud: What?!? Who are you? Can you be my sport's analyst every day?

To my dismay the Wildcats lost by 1! Bummer! But it was fun to impress Adam hehe


This weekend was still fun even if my bracket (and the rest of the country's)  didn't do as well as I hoped.

Did you guys catch any of the games? (this is a valid question since I asked so many people at work if they liked basketball and all but one said no)

7 Quick Lists

1. My mom celebrated her birthday over the weekend to round out the family/friends birthdays to six in the last week (Today is Adam's friend's birthday and Adam's cousin's birthday as well). I didn't realize February was his family's month while August is ours. I'm so proud of my mom and thankful for her and that she found a man that she is happy with. It's nice to see her relax and happier these days ;) Love you Mom!

2. Today is my first day at Kohl's. I'm excited for the opportunity, to meet new people, to stay in my field, and cash flow never hurts. Let's hope the first day goes well!


3. This past week, Adam and I were hard at work on some projects around the apartment. Can't wait to show you guys when we finish them up.

4. We hung out with some friends on Saturday, watched the Marquette game (pretty boring-- those guys needs to learn how to score), and went to a new restaurant. Our friends split a meter of beer. It was cool when they brought it out and they seemed to really enjoy it. (Adam and I aren't big fans of beer which is weird to everyone everywhere but especially here because it's brew city-- so many local breweries!)

5. I went to four grocery stores on Sunday in the name of saving money. I don't think I will ever do that again because a) one of the stores is Target because they have great deal on groceries but b) they also have great deals on everything else I love so the money I "save", I spend on other things and c) you lose so much time going to that many stores that I'm not sure it's worth it. Couponing on the other hand, I could see being very addicting and beneficial. Maybe I'll just do that next time instead.

6. I taught Sunday School to two high school sisters yesterday. Big Lol. I don't think it went very well. They are not very talkative and the lesson was.very.short. On the other hand, Adam was the greeter and was not only cute but very good at it. He even dressed up to be the greeter. He looked good.

7. One of Adam's friends who will not be named gives the worst compliments... at least I think that is what he was trying to do. He said, "Dottie, I usually think bangs on girls are the worst possible decision they can make. I think they look awful. (long pause, lots of crickets and gasps from the girls across the table) But I specifically like yours" "Um, thanks?" It kind of felt like an insult sugar coated with an compliment but also gave us lots of fuel to make fun of him all night lol We laughed a lot about that all night.

How was y'all's weekends?

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Kindra's Birthday

So many birthday's this week.



My dear friend, Kindra, has a birthday today! I am so happy to know her. She is one of my best friends. We were the same major in school and then stayed around in Lexington after graduation. Then randomly we both ended up in Indiana. Well, not really random for her seeing as her family and then fiancé now husband are from Indy but it was random for me hehe She is so funny, creative, and a wise woman of God. We have been there for each other over the years and I am excited to continue on our friendship for many more years to come.

This is what she put on her wall. So cool

 She has a really cool dog that I puppysat a way long time ago that got a major haircut



















We made a Birthday video for her last night that was so bad it was good. Adam wrote a little rap to the tune of Irene by Tobymac and the lyrics are awesome. We however are the worst singers/rappers you have ever heard.... I think she enjoyed it though hehe

 Happy Birthday!!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Birthdays!





Today is my little nephews birthday. He is totes adorbs and so polite. He was born with a rare heart condition and wasn't supposed to live past 20 weeks en utero. He is four today. God is good. I am so proud of my sister and her family. I love that little boy. Happy Birthday Ryan!

My sister has a little bio about him today and also gobs and gobs of other information all on her blog if you want to check it out.

Children's National, the hospital where he was born, put out a little video drawing awareness to his condition in honor of his birthday today.



Today is also Adam's sister's birthday. She is a whoppin 22 today. Wowzers. Believe it or not even though Adam and I have been together for over three years, this is the first year I really realized that our siblings were the same age. Weird, right? I mean, I'm sure I thought about it ages ago but it was really weird to think about this year. They are so different and in different chapters in life, I just forgot. Anyways, back to the birthday girl. Happy double deuce birthday, Sarah!!!

Weekend Recap

We had sooo much fun in Indiana and the best part is we made the trip together. Love it.

Our trip down was fun. Adam took a half day at work so we'd miss Chicago traffic and see friends earlier. We stopped multiple times but it was fun. One of our stops was to pick up Lou Malnati's pizza (hands down the best deep dish pizza ever that I could eat every week and not get sick of it... moving on) in a fancy suburb, which is where we saw this fancy McDonald's. Nice round tables, flat screen tvs, mood lighting, and I'm pretty sure I saw a fireplace through the window. So crazy!





Friday night, we hung out with the Kellers, ate that good, good pizza, and got crushed at Eucre (similar to Rook for those of you who don't know... if you don't know either of those games then we're not friends... just kidding, I pity you though and that's no joke). Kindra pretended that she didn't really know what the games was so we Wardos put our guard down. We got this one in the bag, babe we said with our winks to each other. That was the last time we winked at each other through the night as we got annihilated. Our goal by the end of the game was not to win, it wasn't even to prevent the inevitable of them winning, no, sir, we just wanted to make it on the board. We just wanted one point. Haha we did get one point but not many after that. Those Hoosiers are good. Hehe It was still fun though.


 Kindra and I 


 My friend is such a grown up. Making us feel like we're at a fancy hotel

We stayed the night and then spent half the day with them on Saturday. We ate lunch at Yats, a creole/cajun place that is oh, so good. Worth stopping there if you are ever in Indy.


Later that night we got to eat dinner with Abby, Aaron, Emily (a friend of theirs), and then were joined by some old coworkers of mine, Jennifer, Kelly and her husband Corbitt for some games. Ticket to Ride and Sequence were the games of choices and I didn't come to close to winning any of them. Haha I had such bad luck all day but it was really fun. Adam and I love games. It was so good to see all of my friends again.

We then stayed with some other friends, Jenna and Nate, and Nate left this surprise on my phone. Kind of scary, huh?

My job got pushed back a week so I got to see my coworkers yesterday morning. It was a short but sweet visit. It was so good to see them.

Kelly and I

On the way home, we got to eat lunch with Adam's dad, which was so fun. I'm glad that we at least live near his family. I miss my family a lot but I would be even more sad if we didn't live near any family. It is comforting to know we have them within an hour and half.

We're back in the big city and up for a good week. How was everyone's weekend?

Friday, February 15, 2013

Indiana Bound

We are going to Indiana for the long weekend. (Well Adam has off Monday at least)

We are going to see a lot these people and are so pumped!



Does anyone have any fun weekend plans?


















Isn't she so cute?

Thursday, February 14, 2013

6 Quick Lists


1. Add 3 packages to this pile and you have how many packages the guy in front of me at the Post Office wanted to send. Lucky for me they opened up another line.


2. They're not kidding when they say Cutco knives are sharp. Wowza, this was after I tried to get it to stop bleeding and had wrapped it in a bandaid and a tissue. (sorry for those of you with weak stomachs)



3. Tasha had a groupon coupon for 2 drinks (latte, tea, italian soda) and 2 large bowls of gelato so she invited me to go along. We probably could have invited a few more people. Too much sugar for one person but oh so good. I had tiramisu (my fav), coconut, and snickers (which I wouldn't recommend). Then I had to navigate from the red dot to the blue dot during rush hour. If the highway was clear it would have taken me around 20 minutes... it took more like 45 to get home but I counted it all for exploring and learning the city better.




4. Happy Valentine's Day. We are curling tonight and then going out of town tomorrow so Adam spontaneously asked if I wanted a late dinner with him last night after his class. I never say no to dates. We tried a new Italian place and split a meal. It was yummy!



 Then today we had BOGO Caribou drinks. My favorite coffee chain. (If you have a Q doba in your area, they are doing a BOGO deal as well. You just have to kiss someone (usually your loved one but you could give a peck to the person behind you in line as well if that is your thing)).
 5. I had a coupon to Fab.com for Valentine's day so I bought a new calendar for my desk at my new job. I love Rifle Paper Co. (You can find their stuff online, select paper stores, and Anthropologie as well) so when I saw their stuff was on sale and I had a coupon, I justified the splurge. I am so thrilled. Fab's packaging was cute with the "Hi" message instead their box and the calendar came with it's own decorative box that I am going to use for storage. Luhooove it!

6. Speaking of new job, I got the Kohl's opportunity. It was supposed to start this Monday but has been delayed by a week. I'm excited for the opportunity to meet new people, stay in my field, and have consistent work for a few months at least. They said they hope for this position to become full-time eventually so that's good too.




Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Wedding


Sorry! This is way overdue. I wanted to post a long time ago about our wedding but thought that I would wait for the profession pictures. We got those a couple weeks ago and it has taken me this long to write something about them.

Our wedding day was wonderful. We had so many friends and family support us especially for our wedding being the Great White North. Speaking about the North, we were so thankful that our weather was pretty mild. It was in the 30's, no precipitation.  (The next day was rainy and not pleasant at all.)

I was so happy with our choice of photographer. She captured the day perfectly and got some many great candids of all our friends and family. Love it!

I just wanted to thank the many people who helped with our wedding (if I miss you, it's not because I'm not thankful, it's because I'm forgetful!-- so sorry)

Abby
You are such a good friend to me. You took me from high school to post-grad. What kind of admissions counselor does that? I appreciate your help over the years from places to live, jobs, or simply being a listening ear ( I still remember you telling me that rainy days are perfect for ducks ). But I truly appreciate your friendship over the past year when we lived in Indiana together. I loved crashing at yours or your parents house, playing games, and just hanging out together and talking about life. I could not have done this day without you! You were such an encourager and helper (there are endless pictures of you helping that day, you are wonder woman). I loved spending the day together. You are incredible. I can't wait till I see you next (possibly this weekend?)



she made these flowers and helped with 
so much more of the crafty stuff that day!

Marie
Girl, we have been through so much together. Three years of living together will do that. We have so much history and inside jokes. So happy we are still friends and can share life together even it means mostly phone convos and google chats. Thank-you for standing next to me on my special day. I am so thrilled you could be a a part of it. You helped me so much that weekend from putting on my shoes a million times (every time I switched clothes and shoes throughout the day) to making sure I had transportation every where.  I know that one day you want to live in New York but have you heard that Chicago is just like New York but cleaner? Also I live close to Chicago so.... Just saying.



Kindra
You have been a life saver over the past two years. I am so happy that we became closer during college. You have taught me so much about life, God, finding good deals, and having a good attitude no matter what cards you are dealt in life. I am so happy that we got to live near each other in Lexington and then Indiana.  I will treasure those times forever. You are a truly great friend! Can't wait till I see you next!
Asbury Amigos
These were the friends that could make it to our wedding from Asbury and both Adam and I were so appreciative. We had several people that were surprised that we had so many people travel from out of state and frankly Adam and I were pleasantly surprised as well. For those of you who couldn't make it, we still love you! For those of you that did, THANK-YOU! I know that you guys helped out so much. There are so many pictures of you guys working behind the scenes that we had no idea so much happened in the weekend leading up to the wedding. Thank-you for your friendships and servant hearts. Each of you have impacted us over the years and we are forever grateful. That weekend was so amazing and we loved seeing each and every one of you. I love this photo! So much history and love represented here.

 This picture must have been after the Hewetts and Cunninghams left ;( You guys drove soooo far and we loved you being there with us on our special day!!!


Family
We are so blessed with incredible families. I was so happy that so many of mine could make it to the big day (I have 6 siblings, all married and 4 of them have kids). I love my family. Looking over the pictures, I was reminded of how much they have shaped me for who I am today. From aunts and uncles to grandmas and siblings, they are such witnesses and role models for me. Their relationships with Jesus inspire me daily to grow closer to the Lord. Within the last year, my sisters and I have started calling each other on lunch breaks throughout the week. Those times have been so valuable to me to catch up and grow closer to my sisters even though we live a part from each other. Thank-you for the help and advice that my family provided us over the months leading up to the wedding and even the weekend of the wedding.

I am also so thankful for Adam's family. They have taken me in as their own and I truly feel like I am a part of their family. They were so helpful with the wedding and since have checked in on us to make sure we are doing okay and it feels really nice to belong.









Thank-you Grandma for making the long trip!


This picture is hilarious. I love the wedgie face Kenny is making.


Adam's dad did our ceremony and did a fantastic job


Being the sixth girl to get married in my family, my mom had a lot of experience with weddings. She helped me so much and I love her ;)

Church Ladies (plus some husbands)
Our food was homemade by 3 ladies from the church. It was incredible and saved us so much money. They went above and beyond not only preparing the food but also in serving it. Adam and I were blown away by their service to us. 

We were also helped by a few other people in the church who ran our sound, played the ceremony music, and even did an impromptu filming of our ceremony.


Pastor Earl and Tami

Donna and Fred (music & videotaping)                          Marla and Randi (he helped run the sound for the ceremony)   

Jane and Bob Droese Thank-you so much for letting Adam live with you this past year and for letting me crash the week before the wedding! It was intimidating to find myself in a new city with technically no place to stay. Jane and Bob opened their doors to me and whomever would need a place to stay throughout the week before the wedding. It was so kind!












Kelly and Jennifer
These ladies were my encouragers and helpers at work. I learned so much from them this past year. I am so thankful they were put in my life.  I miss them so much!


Sarah Ward and Taylor Keller, 
They performed the special music for our wedding and did an incredible job. They were so willing to jump in for the music even though they hadn't ever done that song or performed with each other. We loved it!


I just love these pictures! So cute.




We're so happy and thankful for all the help for our wedding weekend!





p.s. I uploading our pictures to facebook and this is what greeted me when I checked my facebook today. 130 notifications!