Flowers

hey y'all!! it's cold. no, cold doesn't even begin to describe it. it's becoming unbearable; i don't do well in temps in the teens much less single digit and negative numbers. but it's days like these that i walk into our well-insulated house and literally feel so thankful that it's warm and not drafty (like our old one).

if you follow me on instagram you have seen that i've been working on our entry and also paint colors for our kitchen and family room. the kitchen facelift project is still in progress and ridding ourselves of the yellow walls is another step in that plan!  once i find time to snap some photos i'll share the details of how everything is shaping up!

but for today i'm thinking about flowers. (this is the most random post!) probably because they remind me of spring which really can't come fast enough. i saw this arrangement on my pinterest feed and really fell hard and fast. i love the symmetry.

when i planning my wedding and meeting with florists, i told them all that i wanted one huge blue hydrangea encircled by white roses. i wanted it to look very tailored. my tastes have since changed a bit (i didn't even like peonies back then - imagine!!) but i remember the florist who i ultimately chose said, "i've never done that before but let's try." i knew she was the one :)  oh but i still love love love hydrangeas - that will never change!

Cook Books + Therapy

hi there! we had a great weekend and i can't believe it's monday already! this is a super busy week for me with all day meetings and i kinda wish it was thursday already because i'm anticipating some late nights.

so anyway, i got a couple of cook books for xmas (that i asked for ;)  keepers and dinner: a love story (a wonderful blog too).

now that the boys are a little older (all of 2 and 21 days!), they can entertain themselves a bit more and really play together which is awesome not only because it's awesome to watch them being best friends but also i can do a few things on my own!! say what?! :) one thing that i'm hoping to do more of is cook. my mom set a really high bar in my family - we had dinner together every single night during the week and it was always, always a home-cooked meal. i have failed miserably to follow in her footsteps. (and now that i have my own children, i feel bad for all of the times that i complained about having curry chicken again or pork chops marengo tango. i was the pickiest of picky eaters though i can't say much has changed!).

i started reading dinner: a love story (the book - it reads like a book instead of a traditional cookbook) and i immediately felt like jenny, the author, was talking directly to me. making meals for the boys can be terrifying to me. i have felt paralyzed at times and then guilty for not making something they like or that's made from scratch (i'm looking at you trader joe's frozen meatballs). for whatever reason, this part of motherhood did not come naturally to me. but in just a few pages, she relieved me of this guilty feeling and whacked me over the head with a good dose of common sense: my children are TWO. set your expectations low. really low. and don't even think about dinner as a family until three. a weight lifted - no flew - off my shoulders. i could almost physically feel it. therapy, right there in a cookbook. who knew?! so anyway, highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a change in their cooking lives.

p.s. i recently also picked up the smitten kitchen cookbook recommended by jenny from dals because i'll pretty much do whatever she says when it comes to the kitchen. my husband took one look at the cover of the smitten kitchen and said "whatever that is, i want to eat it now." so i'm excited to start trying some new recipes out from that one too.

Old Rug In A New House

i had all but given up my search for a persian. everything i saw was either too pricey, the wrong size, or just not my style. i had moved on mentally to other options - namely dhurries and sisals. but that husband of mine reeled me back in and declared that he had really fallen in love with the look of the ebay persian even though he agreed that particular one was too small. hearing those words gave me that "i'm back babyyy!" feeling (seinfeld anyone?).

so instead of trying to find something online, we all piled into the car and went to a favorite rug store of mine (dover rug for locals). they really are so nice there and they even have a thomas train table much to the delight of my little ones! we looked through loads of rugs and eventually found this oddly shaped little persian that looked promising.

they took it down, laid it on the floor, and it looked about a 1,000 times better. then for the best part - it measured 6'4 by 7'1. such an odd size for a rug but serendipitously was just the size that we needed for our entry. FATE!! it's a semi-antique and not perfect - one end is frayed a little and one side is shorter than the other but truthfully i like those quirks; they add to it's character. and the whole thing adds some depth to our echo-y new house!

you can see some of the fraying at the bottom left of this pic:

Funny Ha Ha

a little humor for you today, especially if you are a mom of young children. is there anything that tina and amy can't make funny? my favorite is the sleep quote. rings so very true.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/tina-fey-amy-poehler-parenting-quotes-_n_4556970.html

Work.

work work work. in early january i was supposed to start a new job at work. one that would afford me more flexibility in my life as i try to juggle that delicate balance of motherhood and having a job - i wouldn't go so far as to call this a career anymore - outside of my home life. early january has come and gone and i'm no closer to starting that new, slower paced job. i'm now hoping for mid-february. 4 out of the last 5 nights i've worked until 11:30 and one night until 12:30 after putting the boys down for bed. i know i'm probably preaching to the choir - i'm certainly not the first, or the last, to work long, late hours - but i'm part time as it is so this feels especially awful!

as i sit here and count the days, i wanted to send a quick apology/heads up that my blogging will likely be light in the next few weeks. it's so frustrating - i have a lot to say!! but i need to put my little thing here on hold while i hunker down and try to get through the next month or so. who knows, maybe i'll surprise myself and it won't be as bad as i'm thinking!

in the meantime, let's look at pretty stuff!

pretty watercolor by kerry steele sold at the pink pagoda.

a lovely kitchen window treatment.

an interesting hallway - i wouldn't choose it but it's fun to look at all the details!

hmm, i'm noticing a theme here - peaceful and serene. wonder why? ;)

The Counter Stools I Wish I Had

sorry friends. work life balance is non-existent at the moment and the blog always suffers as a result. i'm also helping with a couple of friends with projects which is really fun but take precedence over blogging when push comes to shove. btw, for those of you who follow me on pinterest and have wondered whether i'm having a baby named "h", i can tell you that no, no baby for me but one of my projects right now is helping to plan a nursery for a baby girl which is super exciting and fun! the other project is a gallery wall in a kitchen which i think is going to look fantastic. can't wait to share everything when the time is right!

ok, so, this absolutely kills me – you search and search for the right thing of whatever you happen to be looking for. let’s say it’s counter stools. just as an example. and finally you decide on a certain style of stool and take the plunge and buy four of them. and then a little while later – say like a year later – you see this other stool in a magazine that you so would have chosen had it been available when you were first looking. and you possibly scream out loud at the picture of the stool “NO NO NO”. and your husband might think there is really something wrong and doesn’t understand that there really is something wrong when you explain what just occurred. because in the case of counter stools, it’s not like you go buying them just because you see something better. they’re not exactly expendable. we’re not talking about an iphone case here. so you are fraught with this hard and fast buyer’s remorse that makes you want to do something rash like put your current counter stools on craigslist. but you eventually calm down and clear your head and you don’t actually put them on craigslist (but there is still that little voice in the back of your head!).

tell me this has happened to you. actually it did happen to me recently with the powder room wallpaper i guess. but i’m not making a habit of that! truthfully i’m not convinced that these stools would be right for my space anyway but i will file them on my “some day” list for when i'm decorating a summer house. :) have a great weekend!

PB Good Finds

did you know that i used to have my husband read every single post before i posted it? i was so nervous about being misunderstood or sounding crazy that i constantly asked him "do you get what i'm saying here??". and he always obliged me even if he had no idea what i was talking about! but i just remembered that and simultaneously realized that i stopped doing it. it feels good to not be as worried what people think. random but there's my positive thought for the day!

anyway! i've always been a fan of pottery barn - there are many others who will say "oh that looks so pottery barn" with a negative connotation. and while i wouldn't outfit my entire house in pb, i have a great sectional from them, a bed frame, and a bunch of stuff for the boys. there are some things that they just do really well so no looking down from this nose!

here are a few items that i'm loving from them right now.

horizontal striped curtain panels - with blackout lining. these are almost identical to the ones in my house!

this blue and white ikat vase.

a squared off headboard with a double row of nailheads. i wish it came in a twin size for the little ones (one day - we're still in cribs here)!

Persians (Of The Rug Variety)

happy monday everyone! i had a really busy and fun weekend (we threw a bday party for our little two year olds!). and now it's already monday! trying to be a good little blogger and hoping i can get a bunch of posts lined up for this week. i have lots to share just not sure i have the time to get it all together!

i am having a little thing for persian rugs lately. i can't get enough of them. and trying to find just the right one is like finding a needle in a haystack - at least on my budget. i'm trying to find a rug for our front entry to warm up that space a bit and i scoured ebay until i found this one. (took this pic in our office for better light but it's not meant for there!)

i love it, especially the tribal feel, but it has a problem - it's too small. and i really have no other place for it. but it got me searching for rooms with persian rugs for inspiration. i could look at these all day!

image via little green notebook

image via because it's awesome

p.s. see these two posts at belclaire house for really gorgeous persians. here and here

FLOR Tiles Yea or Nay?

so i think we need to separate the boys’ rooms. waaahhh! i’m so sad about this! i always imagined them sharing a room for a while and whispering back and forth from their little beds. the problem is though that we have one sleeper and one non-sleeper. and the non-sleeper is causing problems for the sleeper, not to mention his parents but that's another story. ;)  to make this whole idea happen however, a lot of things need to be done. among them, i need to clear out their upstairs playroom to convert it to an actual bedroom. this necessitates the relocation of the train table that is currently in that room. the table will either go in the basement or in the open space between the kitchen and family room. if it goes in that open space, it needs to sit on something, not just the bare wood floor (so it doesn't slide all around and wreck the floors). which then got me thinking, maybe we should have something in that space regardless so that the boys have a little area to play on. and so on and so on! ;) (one thing always leads to 50 others - remember this post?)

this all brings me to today’s post which is about carpet tiles - an idea i'm considering for the aforementioned open space. specifically FLOR carpet tiles. have you ever used them? how have they held up? do they really stay in place?

{another kiddie-minded solution are those rubber play mats (like this one) with the alphabet or numbers. but all of the reviews say how hard they are to clean and how kids easily pull them apart and eat the pieces. fun! not to mention that this is smack dab in the middle of our open floor plan so i prefer to find something that isn't only for kids.}

each tile is 19.7” and i was thinking of 6 ft square which ends up being about a 4x4, or 16 tiles, and roughly 6.5 feet square. this one is my most favorite but of course it’s way more expensive than most of the others. of course!!

funnily enough they show it in a kid's room but i think it could really go anywhere. i let that one go and ordered a few samples of jimdandy...

(this picture shows pretty much exactly how it will be used!)

and roadside attraction. 

p.s. there is a 15% off coupon right now that i saw on retail me not.

have a great weekend!! i'm looking forward to getting rid of this ridiculously frigid arctic air.

Gifting To Yourself

so this christmas my lovely husband was sitting in a chair with a pile of gifts that he had been given. i saw him pull one out – a red lumpy package with a tag that said “daddy.” it took me a couple of seconds but i realized - i did not wrap that gift and it was definitely not my wrapping job! he began unwrapping it with this little smile on his face and so i had to ask “what is that?!”. "oh, it’s from lily." lily is our dog for anyone who doesn’t know, and while lily is a very smart dog, she is in fact incapable of going shopping or wrapping gifts. sneaky sneaky!

innocent lily

have you done this before or did you do it this christmas? buy yourself something, wrap it up, put a tag on it, and open it christmas day? this is something i would fully expect from someone like say, myself, but not someone like my better half. it made me wonder maybe everyone does it occasionally?! anyway it ended up being a duffle bag that he claimed i wouldn’t have bought it for him. he may or may not be correct about that ;) i am not a duffle fan (see here). although if he had asked for it, i’m sure i would have put my own feelings aside and got him his beloved duffle.

Outside Mount Roman Shades

good thing this is a design blog or this would be a really boring post. ;) i have this thing for roman shades. i love them. and i used to be all "inside mount is the way to go" but i've embraced the outside mount look lately. just take a look at these windows (with a few that have awesome valances thrown in for good measure).

oops inside mount! too good though not to include!

inside mount again but i couldn't resist!

all images via pinterest. follow me here.

Happy Me To Me

happy 2014!! i had such a nice break and i am feeling refreshed and renewed - how cliche is that?! i am especially feeling this way when it comes to design stuff and my commitment to continue to make our house into a fun, bright, and comfortable home. i'm excited to see where 2014 takes me on that journey and thanks for sticking around with me while i explore! i also have a few fun client projects that i'm really digging and will try my best to post befores and afters of those.

in the meantime, yesterday was my boys' second birthday. i have TWO 2 year olds! yikes! i can barely believe it's been two years but on the other hand sometimes i definitely can. they love to sing happy birthday and they learned the song when it was daddy's birthday so their version started as, "happy daddy to daddy." now they're adapting it to "happy me to me" which is very precious sounding when it comes from a toddler's sweet little voice!

happy birthday to the two lights of my life. the most adorable and perfect little humans i know. i am so happy to be your mommy!

(finn on top, older than his brother charlie by just one minute)

consequently it's also the second anniversary of my hair growing back - have other moms experienced this?? my hair fell out after the boys were born - all over my head - and it's been slowly growing back in ever since. i have these unintentional long bangs going on right now and if you take a bunch of my hair near my scalp and run your hand down to the tip, it's about two or three times the thickness up at the top. i keep cutting my hair shorter so the two lengths will eventually meet! so random but nonetheless, there you have it!