vino vino + get together

last weekend i went to brunch with some of my favorite yes-i-met-these-people-on-the-internet friends (i always say they're my favorites, and i'm always telling the truth!) and had a blast.

 { from left: kelly, shannon, kate, kelly, jmo, victoria, me }

but that was january. and now we're in february. which means it's time to meet up again, ladies! how about...

wednesday, february 17 @ 5:30pm

vino vino

 

and when i say "how about" i mean that me, vic, jennifer, and selina decided this was a good time and place, so i'm really saying "please come!"

vino vino has half priced happy hour appetizers, so that's a winner. and obviously vino means wine, so again, a winner.

i shall not be partaking in the vino part though because hubby and i have given up drinking and haven't had any alcohol since january 25.

i guess i could talk about that for a minute... this is something very important to us. i've been a casual drinker for a few years with a margarita at happy hour here and glass of wine at dinner there. and we both started to realize that our consumption was getting a bit excessive in the past several months. lots of stress, lots of occasions where drinking was simply assumed. and it's not really how we want to live our lives. we don't want to need alcohol in order to have fun or need it to be able to put up with someone. we don't want to need it at all.

so cold turkey, we have stopped drinking.

we've seen alcohol ruin so many relationships and it's not worth it. we both have/had at least one alcoholic parent and it's really sad. not even abusive alcoholic, just i-must-have-a-drink-when-i-come-home-from-work alcoholic. we've also seen people in our family overcome drinking problems, so that's amazing. for now, we want to prevent ever having to be in that position, given that it runs in our families. that kind of reliance on drinking isn't where we want to be. and that's that.

besides, queso has always been my favorite part of happy hour anyways. :-)

doppelganger

unless you've been living under a rock, the big thing on facebook recently has been to post a doppelganger photo. i had a really hard time with this because i don't think i look like anybody. then i started asking people and received a crap ton of input, including of people i'd never thought of before! these are the current frontrunners... which one should be my profile picture? and do you have any other suggestions?

also, i'm secretly hoping this becomes a big blog post thing because i have opinions on several of you!

me

UPDATE: erin has also suggested jessica alba, which, not gonna lie, i'm kind of geeking out over! i LOVE her!!

{ photo from reelmovienews.com }

mandy moore { photo from celebritysizzle.com }

rachel mcadams { photo from comicbookmovie.com }

josie maran { photo from top-people.starmedia.com }

maria menounos { photo from dailymakeover.com }

and my sister has been convinced since her very first episode of weeds that i look like

mary louise parker { photo from theinside.com }

ok, your turn!

casa bathrooms... check!

one of my favorite things to do with the house is pick out colors for each room. this has been a lunch hour hobby of mine for ohhh, 3 months. we finally picked out the color schemes for each of the three bathrooms this weekend and finished purchasing everything needed for 2 of the 3. success!

i'm hoping to address all of the rooms of the house before we move in, then plan to take pictures of how everything turns out. several of these items we already own so i'm trying to work with what we have and not have a lot to purchase. so here we go...

downstairs bathroom

colors chosen: red and brown with cream and taupe

the predicament: making this cohesive with the rest of the downstairs. everything else is very neutral with shades of green and brown, but with a random pop of red or orange here and there.
inspiration: the glorious print in the top row, by saskia

the details: shower curtain from bed bath and beyond, saskia's print, wall art from target, bathroom coordinates from bed bath and beyond, towels from target

upstairs guest bathroom

colors chosen: sky blue and brown

the predicament: the guest bedroom is red and gold, so i didn't want to use reds, oranges, or yellows. seemed too matchy matchy. green is such a prevalent color in the house, so we didn't want over-do that. blue it was!

inspiration: the stonehenge print i bought at stonehenge in 2005.
the details: shower curtain from bed bath and beyond, stonehenge print from english heritage, vase from target, bathroom coordinates from bed bath and beyond, towels from target

upstairs master bathroom

colors chosen: gray and white

the predicament: the master bedroom will likely be green and brown, we didn't actually want either of those colors in the adjoining bathroom. we also didn't want to duplicate the red or blue of the other bathrooms. this left us with purple, which i loved. but hubby loathed. thus, gray and white was born

inspiration: black and white bridge photography because civil engineers like me are obsessed with bridges
the details: shower curtain, wall art, vases, and bathroom coordinates from target, towels from macy's

like i said, i hope to continue these little color collages over the next month. literally, next month. construction should be done on the house march 9th, we're planning to close by the end of march. eeks!

pretty things game

let's play a game. it's called...

which pretty recipe box should jill purchase?

now that i'm in love with cooking, i'm not in love with setting my laptop on the kitchen counter every time i want to cook in order to read a recipe online. it's box time. also feel free to suggest other fab etsy vendors that make custom boxes and stationery and such. i'm in need of a cutesy address rolodex for my office as well.

oh, and our kitchen is primarily green with black and brown (i promise it's nicer than it sounds), but i'm not limiting myself to our color scheme. fantastical > matching.

1. teal and red lovebirds
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller gifts and talents }
   
   
   
2. pink and green lovebirds
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller gifts and talents }
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. sleeping owl
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller gifts and talents }
   
   
   in addition to one of the above 3, i can also purchase mega cute coordinating box dividers, but i'd have to make my own recipe cards. nothing a printer and cardstock can't handle, right?
   
   {photo and product from etsy seller gifts and talents }
   
   
   
4. green leaves
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller rfrantzdesign }
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. shades of red
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller rubyclover }
   
   
   
6. vintage sage (in the above box size)
   
   { photo and product from etsy seller rubyclover }
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

now that i'm at the bottom of this post, i am drooling on my keyboard. i love them all!

guess who's back... back... back... back again...

ahoy maties! i'd like to pretend like people noticed my leave of bloggy-land absence, but let's not flatter ourselves here. the girl who posted almost everyday for about 6 months, even scheduled posts whilst on vacation and uploaded photos from the airport so she could post vacation pictures immediately after returning, is back.

but with a new leaf.

i have been so freaking fracking busy the past couple of weeks for 4 very specific reasons.

1. i've been a legal machine.
   i've vaguely mentioned this several times, but getting this house has been drama. the construction has been easy breezy, but we had a lot of super duper fun (please note sarcasm) legal stuff to plow through. so after 3 solid months of phone calls, letters, and taking my lunch hour at 10am so i could make all of these phone calls and send all of these letters, this past friday began the the-ball-is-no-longer-in-our-court (literally, it's in a jp's court now) game. we won't know until february 5 in which direction things will go and we probably won't know until a week or so after that if we're solid gold shit, maestro. (love actually reference? anyone? bueller?)
   
   i was trying to guard myself in case we're disappointed in the results and we don't get the house after all, so i chose not to invest myself into the house too much. but mmm, fuck it. i'm going to be excited and if things don't work out, well at least i had a freakin' blast scouring the internet for fabulous guest bathroom ideas and arm chairs. that's life.
   
   
2. i'm taking this betty crocker thing seriously.
   remember that new year's resolution of cooking more? say, twice a week? well i failed during week 2. i cooked one meal. so i decided this was not acceptable and began one of those meal plan thingys people blog about. umm, BRILLIANT. nobody ever told me that if i chose my meals in advance and purchased the groceries for these in advance that i would save money on not wasting a pound of chicken every week and i'd never be short of ingredients. last week i made crockpot pineapple chicken, tacos al pastor, and shepherd's pie. monday night i made oven-fried pork ribeyes and today i'm making my cousin kara's crockpot lasagna. friday shall be honey nut chicken night. have no fear, i've been taking pictures of these delicious concoctions and plan to post recipes soon-ish.
   
   
3. i'm addicted to checking things off my to-do list.
   i downloaded an application for my phone to make lists of groceries, things to do, etc. is it normal to enjoy clicking a check box so much? because i enjoy entering "mail photo albums" and skipping off to the post office simply for the love of the check box. and "sew hubby's shorts" then frolicking to my miniature sewing kit to fix the little hole in his pocket. ew, i sound even more like suzy homemaker. what has become of me!? maybe i should take "find adorable etsy recipe box" off of my to-do list... unless of course, somebody is aware of a very cute vendor.
   
   
4. super mario bros. for wii is my moderately unhealthy obsession.
   if you own a wii and would like to have a life on weeknights, do yourself a favor and don't buy this game. every night it is my personal goal to defeat half of a world. (note: not level, world.) or obtain all of the gold star coins in at least 2 worlds. (thank you nichole for telling me these gold star coins will grant me an additional world at the end of the game. that really helped my getting a life outside of wii. jk, i am uber appreciative). i've reverted back to the 8 year old version of myself thanks to nintendo.
   

so that's about all going on in my neck of the woods. with all of this going on the posts might still be sparce, but starting this blog is one of the best decisions i think i've ever made and i'm not going to give it up for some homecooking and super mario. sounds tempting though, i know

tree love and casa update

i don't think i ever thought i'd enjoy sod and trees. that's old lady gardener stuff.

au contraire mon frere! hubby and i are currently obsessing over trees and shrubs and sod, oh my!

before we delve into the big wide world of flora, these are the latest house photos from the weekend. they are putting up drywall this week, i can't wait to see it.

with siding, windows, shingles, frame, plumbing, electric, and driveway complete

you can kind of see our brick and limestone off to the side too.

the second floor viewed from our master bedroom

starting from the front left, going clockwise... the large space is the loft and the back room is the guest room. to the right of that are the guest room and office closets. you can kind of see the office in the middle right. you can barely see the corner of the guest bathtub. then comes the guest bathroom, master walk-in closet, master bathroom, and where i'm standing, the master bedroom. oh, and the staircase is to the left of the loft. i guess this would be easier to envision if you click on the actual picture so it's blown up.

the first floor viewed from the garage

once more, starting from the front left and going clockwise... directly in front of me is the living room. the back left is a guest room (liz already called dibbs). to the right of that is the first floor bathroom. then comes the kitchen and the space in the middle far right is the dining room. again with the blowing up thing...

the first floor viewed from the garage numero dos

the back left corner is the kitchen and the area with the windows is the dining room. then the staircase and front door.

moving along.

the yard is going to come with bermuda sod in the front and sides, but we are responsible for sodding the backyard. we are torn on bermuda and st. augustine. i prefer bermuda because i think it's softer under your feet and it requires less water. on the other hand, we visited a friend's house who has half bermuda and half st.augustine in his backyard and the st. augustine was still green and lovely under the trees. the bermuda was brown. is winter green worth the coarse texture? any additional thoughts on these?

as for trees, it took me about 4 hours on sunday morning to compile a list of trees that met our needs:

1. austin native
2. hypoallergenic
3. non-toxic

my austin native list began courtesy of the city's grow green book- i highly recommend it! it's free at pretty much any nursery and it very very helpful. the website is equally good. so the austin native list was about 40 trees, short trees, and shrubs. then i had to take out all of the trees that would cause allergy problems (cedar should just be BANNED from the united states) and then the trees that would endanger my pup if ingested. we ended up with 9 options when it was said and done. our current favorites are...

a crepe myrtle in the back corner

{ photo from bexar-tx.tamu.edu }

and a bigtooth maple off to the side in the backyard

{ photo from bearspringsblossom.org }

we're researching some options for an evergreen tree to put on the opposite side of the backyard from the maple. by evergreen, i mean one that will remain green and leafy throughout the year, even in the winter. i like mountain laurels. we also want some cypress-ish shrub-ish plants to put along the fence of the backyard to add a bit of privacy. the arborist i work with recommended arborvitae. any other native recommendations? again with the non-toxic and moderately hypoallergenic thing.

thankful friday - january

i realize it's been a week since i last blogged (or even read anyone's blogs) and thought i'd pop in for a minute to give an update and post what i'm thankful for in january. i'm actually keeping up with a monthly blog post, whoa mama! :-)

update... things are very hectic over here. we are trying to get a lot of stuff ready for the house. picking out a refrigerator, sod, etc. we're supposed to close in march, but i might be april. it seems early, but there are so many decisions to make.

also, please keep your fingers crossed for us. we are nearing the time to submit some items for court review and need as much luck as possible with hopes that the court accepts our efforts, so to speak. i shouldn't talk publicly about the case, but it's a doozie. it involved several hours of researching our phone records, e-mails, etc. all i can really say is that i'm grateful we have such good friends who are here to support us!

onto thankful friday!

1. my grandmothers
   
   i don't know if i've ever spoken much about my grandmothers, but they are all incredibly amazing.
   
   my mom's mom grew up in shiner, texas and her father died in a hunting accident when she was only 5. she grew up to be a strong woman and met my grandfather when she was only 15. she had 4 children, including a set of twins! grandma has a heart of gold, straight gold. i have never, ever, in 24 years heard her speak ill of anyone. she lives for her "grandbabies" and i love her more than words.
   
   my stepdad's mom is my "oma". she was born and raised in germany and actually met my opa during world war II while he was an american soldier passing through her hometown. she is the most social and outgoing grandmother i've ever met. she does water aerobics with her pals once a week, goes on cruises two or three times a year, and visits her childhood home in south germany frequently. she is sooo cultured and such an inspiration.
   
   my stepmom's mom is the quintessential sitcom grandma. that's how hubby describes her at least. she and my grandpa are full of witty banter. she cooks like an ace, takes care of everyone, and isn't afraid to speak her mind. but she's also the most generous woman i've ever met. you'll be hardpressed to find another woman who strives to make christmas better each and every year, she's fantastic.
   
   my dad's mom is... well.. a nutjob. i'm choosing not to go there, lol.
   
   
   { grandmas at our wedding; photo by ron parks }
   
   
   


2. slingbacks
   soo does anyone else have 2 different sized feet? just me? oh. damn. well i do. one is a 10 and one is a 10.5. you know what's so bad about that? 10.5 is not a standard female shoe size! i'm 5'9" and i came with proportioned feet. slingbacks though, are my shoe savior. i can buy a pair of 11's and simply adjust the strap accordingly. alternatively, i can buy a pair of 10's and stretch that slingback to my heart's content. sadly, even my best slingbacks die after a year because my feet are too awkward for proper use. boo feet.
   


3. ben folds
   i'm sure i've mentioned on several occasions that ben folds is my favorite musician. hubby and i danced to ben folds' "still" at our wedding. we named our puppy kylie after the song "kylie is calling from connecticut", and we plan to name our next pup adelaide after the song, well, "adelaide". is this obsessive? it's possible. but why not bring something you love into everyday life!? when kylie is being a little biabia, i sing her song and it soothes her. when hubby and i are cruising around and "still" comes on the ipod, we have a moment. it's really special.
   
   
   { our first dance; photo by ron parks }
   
   
   


4. rosette/bow headbands
   my love of adorable head-wear has made its fair share of appearances on this blog before. i find it hard to pick the perfect piece of jewelry to fit all occasions. i like to add a pop of color and a lot of my jewelry is either too colorful or not bold enough. i don't wear dainty jewelry unless it's a special occasion, it's just not my style. but my headband collection is lovely. pink, turquoise, white with gold stripes, they're great. the loves of my headband life are my rosettes though. whoever decided to throw some extra fabric to the corner of a headband was a genius and i salute them! it still makes me laugh when i think about the first rosette headband i wore to work. the boys couldn't look me in the eyes, they were distracted by my hair. hilarious.
   
   
   { our very first austin blogger get together }
   
   
   
   
   
   { amanda and i at our firm's christmas party }
   
   
   


5. bread
   i have a nickname at work- the toast creepster. number 1, because i call people creepsters all the time. number 2, because i have a love of bread beyond that of most people. i keep a loaf of bread in my desk at all times. every morning i eat peanut butter toast, some days with banana if i'm feeling fancy. many times for lunch i'll have a bowl of soup, but i also need carbs. that's where more toast comes in. feeling empty in the middle of the afternoon? toast can fix that. and when your stomach is upset from a bit too much candy (just me? interesting), toast saves the day. it is a desk necessity i tell you!
   

this wasn't my shining moment in thankful friday history, but it's all i've got right now! i'm thankful for several more things, but i've already talked about them. my husband... who still makes me laugh each and everyday. my pup... who brightens my day the second i walk in the door. so much to be thankful for!

not much

honestly, not much to say right now except...

LIFE IS GOOD.

husband is good.
we found time to hang out almost every morning this week, before he went to bed and i went to work.

puppy is good.
we went jogging on wednesday and i couldn't keep up with her sprinting. she is too much fun for her own good.

work is good.
deadline today, but had a very motivating week and wrapped up a lot of loose ends.

house is (almost) good.
finally making progress on resolving a previous legal dispute. it must be figured out before we can submit to usda and/or fha, and i finally feel like it might get done in time.

family is good.
missing everyone so much since our week together for ellie's wedding, but we're making plans to meet up with my dad in dallas for a hockey game and possibly my mom at the end of the month to celebrate her birthday.

health is good.
i've started my 10k training with hopes of participating in the cap10k this april (even though it's on hubby's birthday).

i can't think of much to blog about because i'm just so darn happy. nothing to complain about, nothing i've really be contemplating. basically just complete and utter happiness this week.

i hope everyone else is had a great week too. and if not, it's friday so focus on the weekend! :-)

we have a kid plan, peeps, we have a plan

it finally happened on sunday, we set up the "if/when we have kids plan."

i have talked about the subject of having kids approximately 234 times on my blog, so i apologize for the redundancy. this is big because we've never actually set a timeline or really gotten down to details, just mentioned our thoughts in passing.

so whilst stuffing our faces with cheese enchiladas (moi) and a hondo burrito (hubs) at trudy's, we talked about kids. romantic yet serious setting, eh? a good friend of mine had a bit of a pregnancy scare this week, so it spurred several conversations over the course of the week regarding when to have kids, why to have kids, etc. i reflected on it a lot this week and thought it was about time we went through the nitty gritty.

and guess what folks, we have a plan.

• IF we have kids, we will likely have them no sooner than 2 years from now and no later than 4. we'll re-assess our readiness every so often throughout this range.
  
  hubby has put a max on his fathering age. he wanted 30, i convinced him 32.
  
  another huge thing is that i don't want to have children before earning my PE. that requires 4 years of full-time engineering experience and i'm currently at about 2.
  
  i want to go on my dream european vacation, african safari, and father-daughter trip to antarctica first. every time we talk about our dreams, kids are never in the picture. i think that reflects on how we're not ready now, but there is just so much we want to do first.
  
  and to be perfectly honest, i don't want to set a time limit of "we have 2 years to accomplish this." that's not living life to its fullest. but at the same time, i don't want hubs to surpass his proverbial time clock. (i thought those were for women but surprise, surprise, they are not) if we feel like we're ready before we do all those things, great. if not, it won't break my heart at this point. also, i know you're never really "ready" for kids, but that leads into the next one...
  
  
• IF we have kids, we will not get pregnant until we are not just ready for 1 kid, but ready for 2.
  
  i refuse to have children more than 2 years apart, preferably something like 14 months apart. ellie and i are 14 months apart and are the best of friends. stephanie and jarrett (my big sibs) are 18 months apart and again, super duper close. we want our children to challenge each other, learn to share together, take care of one another, and have fun together. in most sets of siblings that i see, the bigger the age difference, the longer it takes for them to get close, sometimes that's until their freakin' 20's. i want my kids to be best siblings throughout life. don't worry, i'll force it.
  
  
• IF we have kids, only even numbers.
  
  this is something i'm pretty passionate about and have almost convinced husband to agree on. when there are 3 children, there is always a third wheel. one kid will inevitably be left out. i can't think of one instance in our friends and family where all 3 kids are close evenly. it sucks, but 2 are always going to be closer whether it's because they're the same sex, closer in age, etc. i'm shooting for 2. if you have any stories to the contrary, don't share. i don't want hubs to read it. jk.
  
  
• IF we have kids, please just give us twins.
  
  best case scenario is that we have twins. 2 kids that are close in age (by minutes!) sounds good to us. i know you don't get to choose that, but twins are very prevalent in my family, always skipping a generation for the past like 8 generations (on record at least). my mother is a twin, did not have any twins (that's the skip!), thus one of us girls will likely have twins. i think the odds are 1 in 17 for my sisters and i to have twins. according to ellie (who is currently trying to get pregnant and researching out the wazoo) it comes down to passing some gene from female to female. that means my brother doesn't have the same higher odds as the girls.
  

well that's about the gist of things. i think this sounds like a good plan. if we do decide to have kids, we've covered how we would like to go about it and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

that reminds me of the quote of the month, convo between hubby and i at the everglades, while my parents wandered around the visitor center.

me: why are we just walking around? let's talk to someone and figure out the airboat situation.
hubby: ok, hitler.
me: i'm not hitler, i just want a plan.
hubby: yeah, hitler had a plan too.

i know, terrible to joke about hitler and the holocaust, but my oma and opa met in nazi germany (she was a german gal, he was an american soldier- precious!), so i've heard a zillion first-hand accounts of what it was like and i have the utmost respect/disrespect for its aspects.

back to kids. and the plan thing. the problem with this conversation is that while i enjoy a good plan, it's hard to envision because we're not there yet. i keep saying "if" in huge caps because neither of us see it right now. it's like saying "if i were going to live in a fairy tale, i would be ariel and you'd be prince eric." it's how you picture it, not something you actually see as happening. but we're staying open-minded.

i completely blame kylie for this convo even coming about. we have so much fun playing with our pup that it doesn't seem like a far stretch to swap that white hair with rosy cheeks and make it a kiddo. you know, except that you can't leave rosy cheeks at home by itself while you go to the movies. eff.

let's talk about debt

talking about credit cards, student loans, and general money issues is such a personal thing for most people, they hate to admit their faults.

in case you can't tell, i'm not afraid to admit my faults. (lol) and one of them in the days of college yore, was credit cards. i had such a credit card problem. i charged silly things like throw pillows and necessary things like oil changes, it didn't matter. it just seemed like free money that i could pay back when i graduated from college.

regardless, i have had an asset by my side the past couple months and want to recommend it- suze orman's "money book for the young, fabulous, and broke".

{ photo from amazon.com }

any question you might have ever had about finances and your 20's is answered here. things like "why should i invest in a 401k instead of savings?" or "how do i know if i can afford a house?" or "what the hell is a difference between a traditional ira and roth ira?" or "can i borrow against my 401k for a down payment on a house? what are the pros and cons?"

thanks to suze, i can actually hold intelligent financial conversations with my dad! and tell you that first and foremost- invest in your 401k if your company will match. oh my goodness, invest in it. i didn't want to when i first graduated and my dad convinced me to. i am so happy i did, that is free money. and not the free money i used to think credit cards were. REAL free money.

my credit score has gone up 30 points since purchasing her book and the suze orman myfico kit. in her myfico kit, there are things like a credit score simulator where you can say "if i pay $XXX toward my credit card debt for XX months, what will my credit score be?" or "what if i max out my cards?" then it gives you a range for what will happen with your score. it has been dead-on so far and is great for setting goals with attainable outcomes! the kit also has a calculator for how long you'll be paying off your cards based on user-input monthly payments and your interest rates. it was a $50 investment which might seem a bit much for something like the "how long will you be paying calculator" that you could make a spreadsheet of. but it also includes 3 credit scores (however, experian doesn't provide through myfico.com) that you can retrieve at any time or all at the same time. usually those are $16 each on myfico.com so that alone is worth the cost.

since starting our debt-free mission, we have not charged a single thing on a credit card since october 10 and haven't needed to. we paid cash for everything on our vacation to key west. okay, that second one is a half-truth because my parents paid for our flight, hotel, and excursions. but the food and souvenirs were cash and damn it, we've never done that before!

yes, sometimes i want to cry when i see a blouse on j.crew and have to remind myself "apply that $50 to your credit card, you'll be that much closer to your goal". and i want to cry when i see someone with a super adorable new bag because i haven't bought one in over a year. or someone with amazing shoes because the last pair i bought were on clearance at target. in august.

and then i remind myself that it's okay they have those things even though i don't. there's no reason to be jealous, everyone has their own circumstances and priorities. i would rather spend $50 on treats and toys for my pup than a pair of shoes and that's my priority, people are just different. and i'm happy for my friends buying fabulous trendy things... if they paid cash. but if they didn't, they are worse off than i am for not having them.

i keep thinking about how much money we are paying on our cards right now to pay them off, every spare penny we have, and you know what i realized? when we're debt-free, the money we spend each month on debt could buy us a new laptop in april, dining room table in may, etc. but we are knocking it out left and right and i'm excited!

hurry up and get here march, because my laptop is so physically broken that i can't close it and i need a new one. but i want to pay cash and that's when our debt will all be gone. i can't freaking wait to get there, it will all be worth it.