A girl with a dream.

That girl would be me.  Do you ever daydream about those carefree days...in high school, college?  Sure it was hard at times.  I was discovering myself, learning the lessons that would shape who I am today.  Some of those lessons learned tend to linger, creeping into adulthood.

Source: 2.bp.blogspot.com via Kristin on Pinterest

As an adult, my dreams have become overshadowed by the responsibilities that come with this life.  I get bogged down by these obligations.  It is, after all, the reason I'm trying to boost my daily happiness.  I'm reminding myself much more often of how grateful I am for this life I have with my D, my furry babies, having a job, and everything else wonderful I have.  There is still the disheartening fact that I may never live out some of my beautiful dreams.

Punky got me thinking about dreams when she posed this question,

"I'm curious--if you could go and/or do anything you wanted to in your life right now... what would it be? Where would you relocate?"

Source: bonafidechainblinger.com via Kristin on Pinterest

If I could do anything with my life right now...I would be a travel writer and get paid to write/blog on the side.  Traveling is my passion; I could not fully live a life without travel.  I dream of being my own boss, doing something I love and getting paid for it.  I have a small dream of writing my own book.  Having a job that gives me the opportunity to travel and be paid for it would be a dream come true.

Why can't this dream come true?  I don't have a degree that proves I know how to write.  I'm up to my ears in student loan debt and just can't afford to go back to school.  I don't think anyone is extending offers to pay someone to travel and drink for a living.

Where would I relocate...I'm absolutely obsessed with Europe.  After our trip around Europe, I can not stop thinking about how amazing it would be to live there.  The easy accessibility to so many amazing places filled with enthralling histories.  The beauty.  The cultures.  I'm fascinated.  It would be a dream come true to relocate to any city in Europe.  I'll take an job there...just the opportunity to live there would be enough for me.

Source: tfisherart.com via Kristin on Pinterest

My dreams continue to stay big, but what if I never see that day that they come true?  Adulthood can make you feel stuck.  How do you get unstuck and follow your big dreams?

How would you answer Punky's question? 

Fresh start.

It's time for me to turn over a new leaf.  I complain a lot.  I talk a lot about figuring out things that make me happy.  I'm consistently feeling like I'm in a rut.  The reality for me is that I can not change things.  There's plenty of quotes over on Pinterest about changing things to be happy.

Source: etsy.com via Kristin on Pinterest

I can't change the "big" things in my life, the things that occupy much of my daily time and my scale of happiness.  I can't change my career.  I can't change my loan debt.  I can't change my income.  I can't travel all the time.

Source: designeditor.typepad.com via Kristin on Pinterest

What I can do is change small things in my life.  I can change my mindset.  I can be happier.  I have the freedom to be happy (and I'm brainstorming a new tattoo to make this a daily reminder).  I truly do not think I will ever be 100% happy if I can't learn how to make happiness, not stress and frustration, a daily part of my life...through the best, worst, and not-so-good times.  Now I don't want to get ahead of myself.  When I was teaching middle school, I started adopting a mindset of positivity every morning.  It worked...for about a month.  It's time for a new plan, a fresh start.

Source: ks-waiting.blogspot.com via Kristin on Pinterest

Time to use these five simple rules for happiness.  In order to not overwhelm myself, I'm employing Gretchen Rubin's (author of one of my favorite books, The Happiness Project) method of having a monthly goal.

Starting immediately after spring break (April 9), it's time for my own mini-Happiness Project.

• Yoga - at least 3 mornings per week
• Gratitude/quote journal - record in it prior to yoga

[Yoga for Beginners Boxed Set]

D ordered this awesome boxed yoga set for us recently.  I did the am Gentle yoga last weekend and loved it.  I've been going to beginner yoga at the YMCA since January, and I love it.  It's become a relaxing, calming way for me to start the week.  I think hope that the am yoga is going to be the perfect way for me to address the happiness rule #2: Free your mind from worries. 

[via Amazon]

I know the gratitude journal seems cheesy.  It's just that all of these great quotes, mantras, mentalities just slip my mind so quickly.  It's time to change that.  It's the perfect way to set my intention and end my yoga practice in the morning.  It's a way for me to maintain my mindset because I can carry it with me.  Whilst researching a gratitude blog, I did come across this little gem...

[happy tapper!]

It's a really cute app that let's you record five things per day that you're grateful for.  It is designed in the cutest way!  I may use it temporarily since 99 cents is cheaper then $12 for the physical journal.  I do think I will invest in the journal if I can maintain this goal.  

Tell me, what keeps you happy on a daily basis?

Toast to celebrations.

On February 4, this little baby officially became ours.

Now I can really get going on all those design/decor/renovation ideas (who am I kidding...I'll be lucky if anything new is done in 2 years time).  What a load of stress off our shoulders.  I will say that it really didn't make me feel any more grown up to be a "homeowner" and actually stressed me a tad more now that our savings has been cleaned out. 

Nonetheless, we celebrated with a night of beer and food in downtown Raleigh (which we can officially call our home). 

[A little Wake N Bake to celebrate...yes please!]

 [Oh yeah...he has good reason to be excited]

 [It may not seem like a lot...but this beer will go very far...]

[Four year vertical tasting...years 06-10 of our fav beer]

So we did the vertical tasting.  It was unanimous that 2007 was the best.  It also got D and I reminiscing on our years together and figuring out what our best/favorite year was.  It ended up being a nice night, and I felt just fine the next morning :) Score 1 for us in February!

I hate it so bad I want to cry.

Don't you think it's weird how some people LOVE cleaning and others HATE it?  I was at a training last week and we all had to introduce ourselves, yada yada yada.  One of the girl's "special interests" was actually cleaning because it is relaxing for her.  I almost threw up in my mouth.  I despise cleaning.  The one thing I despise most is...doing the dishes.

[My sink pretty much looks like this half the time (although this is NOT my sink)]

Ok...we do not have a dishwasher in our house right now.  It is like my personal living hell.  Believe it or not we've looked at some houses without a dishwasher...DEALBREAKER!  It is a complete necessity in my life.  D and I try to take turns, but it doesn't help.  I turn into a whiny 2 year old when I have to do them.  I hate putting my hands in that dirty, disgusting water.  I hate the way my fingers get so wrinkly and feel icky.  I hate scrubbing the dishes trying to get everything off.  It doesn't help our situation that 1) we both aren't the biggest fans of chores/doing dishes, 2) we let them pile up so it's 10x worse when we actually have to do them and 3) D is the worst about filling up cups and bowls with water so they don't have crusty milk in the bottom.  I do full on whining, complaining, constantly saying "I hate this so much," and almost crying when I do dishes.  D said last time that I turned into a little kid when I did dishes.  I told him I didn't care.  He should know that about me all too well and this was never going to change.  I am not sure where my hatred of dishes comes from...  I hate chores in general.  D actually does most of the chores (although we're both pretty messy).  I've joked that when we buy a house we are going to HAVE to invest in a maid :)

Needless to say...I need a dishwasher ASAP. 

UPDATE:  I'm finally going to have a dishwasher again :) 

What you've been waiting for.

This is it...my BIG news.  I bet your minds have been turning (because you think about me all the time, I know!)...none of you better have guessed I was pregnant.  Come on...you know how I feel about kids.  And with the recent financial depression of summer 2010, fuck if I am bringing a kid into this family.  Ok, ok...stop teasing you.

But seriously guys (ok, mostly gals)...we found it.  Our house.  Here's the story.  We had almost given into this house...a week or so earlier:

So quaint and cozy!  

Of all the other homes we had looked at, this was fit the bill for us.  Hardwoods, all appliances (even w/d) included, three bedroom, one full and one half bath.  The rooms were a bit small, but we loved the neighborhood and knew we could resell easy there.  Conveniently the seller was considering renting the house out soon, so the pressure was on.  We felt like we hadn't seen everything we wanted to and decided to look a more before we bit the bullet.  

You know I told you we had primarily only been looking inside the Raleigh beltline.  I mean I was pretty freaking solid on NOT looking outside that.  Our realtor sent us some homes outside so we could see what we could get for our money if we looked outside.  I practically shot her right down.  The houses we were looking at in our price range inside the beltline were pretty small.  Now you know I didn't care about/want anything big.  After some googling (I love how this is now an acceptable verb), we drove by a couple of home outside the beltline.  They were relatively close to downtown too.  We set up some viewings.  When we walked in...I fell in love. Later, D and I both agreed we just felt at home there.  The map below shows the beltline and location of the house...

  [That little "A," that's us!]

In reality, this house is the same distance from downtown Raleigh as the little white house above.  It also shaves off a bit og my commute time.  We've been negotiating and came to a pretty awesome deal that D and I are so happy with.  It works out with our financial situation and meets the sellers' needs as well.  Soooooo...without further ado...meet our newest roof!

 [Ok, ok...worst pic ever.  These aren't my pics...I haven't gotten a chance to take any yet, but ahem trust me they are coming!  But note the swing on the front porch.  She looks tiny, but she has a lot more space than the little white guy above]

 [So I am sort of obsessed with this backyard.  Perfect size for the doggies.  Already made privacy fence.  And see that little extra space to the left of the side of the house?  Yep...that's where our garden and chickens are going to stay.  Right ladies!  I said chickens.]

 [I don't need no stainless steel appliances!  I'm happy that we won't have to buy any appliances immediately.  Oh and let me please note that I am ecstatic about having a dishwasher again!  It's been a long 6 months without one.  This will certainly save us some money and we can eventually upgrade when we're ready.  Adore the open kitchen.  There's a ceramic sink with disposal.  Huge cabinets.  That white table is the "breakfast room" area.  There's a little desk nook to the left of the pic]

[Adore the built in bookshelves.  We're going to knock out the ones around the TV so it'll be easier when we upgrade to a bigger TV...one day.  The adjacent wall to the bookshelves has a set of three windows to allow lots of light in the living room.  Living room is a bit small...but I'm content with that]

[Possibly the worst pic yet.  Master bedroom.  The only room with carpet, but we want to eventually put in hardwoods.  Master bathroom with a standing shower and double sinks!  I die over them.  That was seriously something we wanted but thought we'd never get.  Omg.  Love.  HAVE to get rid of the full mirrors on the closet (which we also weren't expecting to find a master with such a big closet).  I'm not ready for sex surrounded by mirrors...TMI?]

[Second FULL bath!  So cute.  It also has built in shelves behind the door.  Super excited to have 2 full baths for when guests come]

So I am not even kidding.  I love, love, love this house.  It has everything I could have wanted (ok minus a fireplace...but I'll totally deal).  It was built in 2006, so everything is relatively new in house years.  Hardwoods, the already built fence, two big guest rooms (seriously...the others were tiny in comparison!), dining room plus the breakfast room as a part of the kitchen, the bathrooms, a back deck (which we can totally build on a screened in porch too), etc. etc.  D is not showing his excitement as much as me.  He keeps talking about projects and handy-man stuff he's going to do.  We're moving in sometime in October and hopefully I'll be posting LOTS more pictures of the house and this process.  I'm looking forward to spring and having this experience with D :)  It'll be fun to watch him do projects and make our family of us and two dogs and two cats complete with our house.  Can't wait to share this experience with you all!

**Ps. I have been totally scared to share any of this with anyone (including my parents!) because I didn't want to jinx any of it.  I am totally typing this on Friday and scheduling it for Sunday so I can remove it if necessary.  I am supposed to get the official word tonight or tomorrow...but I still nervous to make the blogosphere announcement.  Here's to hoping!

House Hunting :: The realtor.

I told you guys that we had been driving around window shopping homes, and we decided to take the plunge and start looking inside some of them.  We knew this was going to be an involved process, so we figured why not go ahead and look at some.  We got hooked up with a realtor who of course asked us about pre-approval.  We hadn't taken that step yet because we weren't feeling like we would find something that day and want to put down a bid.  Then we decided to just go with it so we would have an idea of what our actual price range would be.  Much to our surprise, we got approved for more than we thought!  That still doesn't change much about our price range though. 

We're looking for something like this...

Haha...yeah right.

We're still looking at our modest three bedroom/two bath homes :)  Even though we initially tried to make our point clear that we are simply looking, the realtor loves to keep mentioning a particular house that we should "make a move on quickly" for whatever reason.  The thing is...we weren't even in love with that one.  It was one of the first we looked at and it was adorable.  It was very much like the homes D and I have rented in the past; however it has a tiny kitchen (with no dishwasher...ugh) and one bathroom.  I mean it is high on our list of "likes" but we don't see ourselves coming home to that house every day.  Realtors can be so pushy.  Then there's a home that is really close to downtown that just went on the market we want to see.  When we mentioned it to her, she almost immediately shot it down stating that since it just went on the market she "seriously doubts" we could get the seller to go down on the price and pay closing costs.  Ok, we'll call her B, get a freaking grip.  We want to LOOK at the house and keep our eye on it.  After this, we had to gently remind B that we are looking and taking our time.  We're freaking first-time homebuyers!  This is nothing we are going to rush into the first house we might moderately like.  Now we know we aren't going to find something like this...

[Although isn't it gorg?! weheartit]

We're just looking for our modest three bedroom/two bath with a decent kitchen and big yard.  We'll find it.  

**This is another reason I've been slacking on posts!  I'm trying to fit in a full day at school and leaving immediately after to view houses.  BUSY!

We're the dreamers.

On Tuesday D and I got to drive around some and look (only from the outside) at some houses for sale around Raleigh.  Not that anyone cares about Raleigh, but let me give you the run down.

This is Raleigh.  Now see that yellow 440 beltline?  That's where you/I want to live.  We live in that beltline towards the western-center side.  We are spoiled.  We currently rent in what I believe is one of the best places to live in the city.  We can see the downtown Raleigh lights from our street at night.  We live so close to the most amazing neighborhoods.  As for buying a house in this area...impossible.  No houses in our direct area are probably going on the market anytime soon.  Who are we kidding...even if they did we could probably never afford them.  I'm starting still trying to come to terms with the fact that once we buy I will not be able to walk to the Y or be ridiculously close to our neighborhood bar or Harris Teeter.

We need to start scouting out the other good neighborhoods where we'll be happy living since we can't dish out get approved for a $300,000+ mortgage (ok right...I'm just a teacher!).  The first neighborhood we checked out was over on the eastern side of Raleigh outside the beltline.

We were intrigued by this super cheap fixer upper on a corner lot and with a "lake" in the backyard!  Truthfully, it could have been a prospect yet the distance from downtown and subdivision itself outweighed the price and lake.  We aren't really looking for something that big either.  After we left driving by this house, I mentioned to D that there aren't too many requirements in a house that I am dead set on...except a fireplace.  I quickly learned that a lack of a fireplace is not a dealbreaker for me after I fell in love with a house we stumbled upon.  We just went driving and found a pretty good neighborhood with lots of houses for sale.  I'm not going to jinx anything by telling you which I fell in love with...

Even though it looks older, this one is really nice on the inside.  Beautiful hardwood floors, large fenced in backyard (yardage is pretty much a requirement for us with the doggies and love for BBQing)

Yep...it looks tiny and I don't care.  D and I have no intention of having kids anytime soon.  We have no need for anything much bigger than 3 bedroom (which this is).  I adore the hardwoods and stainless steel and granite counter tops.  The inside is crucial for me and this one has been remodeled.  Little house, big yard, happy girl.  (Oh and let's not forget less for me to clean...and I despise cleaning)

Terrible picture but big yard.  There's a little studio apartment on the property (not sure where) that could be rented out.  Nice new appliances and granite counter tops.

Also looks tiny...but it is 3 bedroom too.  It has huge front, back, and side yards.  It has a cute little deck, hardwoods, and of course stainless steel appliances.  It's been remodeled.

Since we don't have really much money saved coming off the wedding, moving, and no summer pay for me, we're scouting out our areas and saving money with our cheap rent (while continually being spoiled in our amazing neighborhood).  All of these houses were pretty much in the same general area of Raleigh which is close enough downtown that I think we could cope.  Also the houses that are a bit out of our price range, we'll keep tabs on as far a price reductions go while we save up.  I'd rather buy smaller and cheaper so I am not dishing out half my monthly salary on a house...this bitch needs travel to exotic locales more than a house!  I'm hoping this weekend we can drive out to some of the areas around southwestern Raleigh this weekend.  I'm actually starting to look forward to saving for a house and viewing the insides! Eh...well I'm still torn on giving up our international vacay next summer for a house....

Our little family.

My brain had been crazy lately.  I've been having the freakiest dreams including all sorts of celebs...Sex and the City girls, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber (wtf??).  Last night I had a dream where I went to this bar/music venue and came in contact with a lot of people I haven't seen or necessarily thought of since high school and early college days.  It's been strange.  Maybe these are things my brain wanders to when I don't have all the school and work stress?

Another place my mind has been wandering to is our family.  I love our little family consisting of me, D, and our four pets.  I have absolutely no desire (actually it's practically a fear) of expanding our family anytime soon....or even ever?  Four years ago, I was freaked out by all the people I knew of getting married (um hello...I was only 21 then!).  Right when I progressed passed the freak out of that and got married myself, it seems like over 50% of the people I know started getting pregnant.  My facebook is overwhelmed with pictures of people's babies or their pregnant bellies (ew) or a status about how many weeks along they are or other baby/child related thing.  I'm freaked out by it.  I still feel like I am so young...with so many things to do in my life!  I haven't traveled to wine country or New Zealand!  It takes me long enough to get myself sunscreened up and packed to head to the beach for the day.  It takes all my energy to head to school, work all day, work out, and then (maybe) cook dinner.  I want to spend money on plane tickets and clothes.  D and I live in a beer centered world.  I don't want to spend my nights with baby while he goes to beer events. 

Can you picture me dealing with this in a bar? [Google images]

This is not on my life list right now.  Maybe I don't understand this "joy" associated with motherhood?  Maybe I'm cynical and come across as a baby hater.  I just am only 25 and still selfish with my personal time.  I also work with kids for my job (which I adore) and that's enough kid time for me.  Maybe one day I'll outgrow my selfishness...not crossing my fingers it won't be anytime soon.

And I'll continue to dote on friends' babies...but I may not offer to babysit ;)   

Beach bumming.

Wouldn't this be a lovely view to wake up to?

D and I had a serious convo a couple weeks ago about buying a house.  That boy is all serious about it.  It is exciting to me in a way, but I'm still a bit freaked about that kind of major commitment (financially and to Raleigh).  Anyway, my lil sis is in town and we took her out to Kure Beach, NC for the day.  We were just chilling on the beach and talking about how awesome it was to just be out there.  For the past few weeks, I've made the beach at least a weekly trip.  It's totally worth the 2+ hour trip to just lay by the ocean, drink some beers, and clear our minds.  I've mentioned to D a couple times how cool it would be if we could rent a house out there for the summer and just stay while I'm out of school.  He could drive back into Raleigh for events, etc.  I mentioned that wouldn't be too feasible if we buy a house earlier next year because we wouldn't have the cheap rent we have now.  Surprisingly, D totally threw out the idea of ending our lease in Raleigh in April or so, renting a house at the beach for the summer, and looking to buy houses at the end of the summer.  What?!  I would die.  I would totally take a month or so of the long drive to school to be by the beach for the entire weekend.  I'm definitely not going to let this idea slide ;)  Plus...I definitely think we could use the extra time to save up money for a house.  Feel free to come visit me next summer at the beach...   

House I'm adoring.

I've mentioned before that D and I have been speculating buying a house within the next year or so.  We get these emails from a realty company now with houses in the Raleigh area that "match our search."  Sometimes I look at them, sometimes I don't.  It's almost become depressing due to the fact that we'd ideally like to live/stay in "central" Raleigh.  We picked up a flyer from a house for sale in our area the other day "just to see."  Holy shit...the listing was for $600,000.  Whoa.  Central Raleigh will not be happening for us with prices like that. 

Anyway...this house was on one of my emails today.

 I'm in love.  Check out the other pictures.

 Ah!  It has a finished basement, screened porch, adorable kitchen, hardwoods upstairs, a huge backyard.  I'm in love.  It's more northern Raleigh and probably a bit out of our price range, but I adore it.  You know, taking into consideration that I actually have not seen it in person.  That yard and screen porch totally sold me.  I could just see us adding on a deck and fencing in the yard ;)  I know...getting quite a bit ahead of myself.  We may not even be able to afford it and it may be way too far away from where we want to be.  It's definitely one of the best places I've seen thus far though.  Looking for houses can be fun ;)

My two cents :: Becoming homeowners.

D and I have been thinking, talking, etc. a lot more about buying a house.  Since myself, as well as many of my other friends, are growing up, getting married, and making major life decisions, I've been having all kinds of adult conversations.  D and I bought our first car together at the beginning of this month.  Now neither of us have stellar or "important" credit that agencies look at when approving you.  We're pretty excited about having our payments on the car boost our credit and get us in better shape for a mortgage.  Whoa.  I mean we are REALLY adults...buying cars, rationalizing our credit scores, thinking about mortgages, etc.  I never thought I would be thinking so much about buying a house.

Now I think boys have a different mentality on house buying that girls (or maybe just girls like me who are super afraid of such a HUGE financial commitment).  For D, he is anxious to buy a house because he despises the idea of "throwing away" money on rent.  My mind is more worried about the money it would cost us, and not a landlord, to fix anything that went wrong around the house, buying a washer and dryer, etc. etc.  Once I made THE big commitment of marriage, maybe I started thinking a little more about long term plans like owning a house.  The move to Raleigh really started getting me excited about exploring a figuring out areas in town where we may like to live in the future.  So....I've jumped on board with the house search (not that we are seriously searching or even close to buying a house).  We still know absolutely nothing about buying a house. 

It's funny how things change though.  When the idea of buying a house in Raleigh was thrown out (before we even moved here), I was thinking we'd probably want to look in a surrounding county of Raleigh.  Why?  I work in a surrounding county so my commute would be lessened.  Cheaper houses.  Better schooling system (if kids were ever in the picture).  You get the idea.  This was before we moved here.  We decided to rent a house really close to downtown Raleigh, which is where we are living now.  I absolutely adore the location of our house.  As far as we can tell, the neighborhood is pretty safe, and we haven't had any problems thus far.  This is what I am talking about with things changing.  After we moved here and I've lived in this area, I would never want to live anywhere different.  Now, I will note that I think we are at a unique point in our lives.  We're married, but we are still young.  Kids are no where near the forefront of our minds.  D works for a beer company, and we go out a lot.  That being said, I could not imagine having to drive 20 minutes to get to some of our fav downtown bars and restaurants.  I wouldn't exchange a lessened commute for living farther from the downtown area.  For me, I learned the importance of living somewhere first before making a commitment to buying a house.  This is not to say that in three years I wouldn't change my mind since we may be in a different place in our lives.  If that is the case, we may very likely be shit out of luck if the housing market still hasn't picked up and we own a house near downtown.

Another conflict though is our small budget.  Now we have obviously driven around some of the areas near downtown.  Let me tell you...most of the houses are fucking huge!  I mean we obviously have not started pricing houses, but I'm not sure that it's even likely that we could afford a decent house near downtown.  Find a foreclosure?  Eh...this post is getting too adult for me.  But my two cents is that I'm glad we have six months or more (our lease is six months and we'll renew every two months) to check out the area and decide what our best house options are.

*Oh, and it should be a given that this is MY two cents...it doesn't mean it applies to everyone.  Opinions and advice are welcome :)

When it rains, it pours.

Well I've been unusually busy in the past week.  I showed you guys a picture of our unpacked house last week.  As of Wednesday our plan was to return our Budget truck after school and do some organization shopping.  Well I monumentally fucked up the remainder of that evening and week by getting in a car accident. Fast forward to time being spent remeding that situation and getting a new car (since my previous was a hand me down that wasn't worth much anymore).  That took a whole day (which I admit was probably exponentially made harder by us not having been in Raleigh very long).  I got a little Kia, which was by no means the car I had been holding out for.  It's growing on me though ;). Gets good mileage, we'll boost our credit, and hopefully be closer to buying a house.  We felt like we were finally "real, married" adults.  So as you can imagine, we've had quite the expensive start to marriage...paying for elopement, wedding party, moving out of state, then purchasing a car.

Well then my cat, Bailey, got hurt jumping off the counter.  We noticed he was limping on Friday night but held off taking him to an emergency clinic.  One, we couldn't afford that; and two, he wasn't yelping when we touched his leg or when he limped around.  I took him to a new vet on Saturday and came out of there with a ridic $240 bill including x-rays.  He's ok....probably just a sprain but he got some awesome meds and up to date immunizations. Yet again, when it rains it pours.  Can I please also note, I am supposed to be saving money since I don't get paid for the two months I have off for summer break.

On a positive note, we did some hardcore unpacking and have gotten things arranged.  I do realize that the "unpacked" picture above looks a bit cluttered.  Bear in mind, we are fitting items from a 3 bedroom house w a large living room, dining room, and kitchen into a tiny 2 bedroom living room/dining room/kitchen combo house.  It's tough.  We feel TONS better having things in their places.  I still have to work on the guest bedroom.  We'll get there.

Oh and we have been drinking beer and discovering Raleigh ;)

Sent from my iPhone

One day.

We're going to buy a house.  It's sort of a scary idea to me.  The idea of committing myself to a place to live long term.  The financial commitment to actually buying a home.  Add in the fact that we will be low-budget home buyers.  All of Sarah's posts about interior decor really got me thinking.  I've never been a decorator.  I have a hard enough time putting together trendy outfits everyday.  Decor is not my forte by any means.  As is fashion.  I like to just steal outfits I see.  I guess I don't have an eye for these things.  Anyway...this deisgn*sponge post really got me excited about re-doing rooms in a REAL HOUSE.

Here's the before kitchen:

[design*sponge]

After:

[design*sponge]

I love the new kitchen!  It's so simple and really reassures me that you can have a wonderful, small kitchen.  Love the stainless steel appliances.  Love the colors and chalkboard.  Definitely all super simple and makes me feel more confident about my lack of a "decor eye."  I love it.  Looks like we may start searching for houses sooner than later :)