WELL THIS IS AWKWARD

I am a big fan of awkward situations. In fact, I am usually the conjurer of awkward moments in the work place and at home. A few weeks ago, I was e-mailed a link to a website of a wedding stationer I'd never met before and when I saw the first page of this creative professionals website all I could say was "well, this is kinda awkward." The photographs were almost completely identical to a photo shoot I had styled a year ago.  Here's a little awkward glimpse.

Slightly awkward right? I guess it's like showing up to some fancy event wearing the same exact outfit as someone else, only the other person thinks your outfits are different because you aren't wearing the same perfume. what? awkward!

FORMSPRING

I noticed all these cool kids getting formspring accounts as of late and since I know so many of you have questions for me that tend to keep you up at night, I thought I'd give you all a way to ask. This is really for your own well-being. so ask away. 

ENCHANTING

Here's a picture from a photoshoot I did a few weeks back with the beyond-talented Daniel Usenko. That guy just keeps getting better with each picture he takes. It's kind of ridiculous actually. Check out the rest of the shoot and the other amazing vendors involved on his blog.

 

ANNIVERSARY CAKE

Originally we wanted to have a big picnic bash for our one year anniversary, buuuut we got totally rained out. Thank goodness we got married last year when it was nice and sunny. As we rolled back into town from our weekend getaway, we stopped by Papa Haydn to pick up our one year anniversary wedding cake. We got poppy seed cake with marionberry cream cheese frosting (our favorite layer from the original cake). Me and the husband agreed that the cake tasted better on our wedding, just like my shoes were only comfortable on our wedding and the dress only fit on our wedding. But we enjoyed it nevertheless.

ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY.

A one year anniversary sounds way important and it's so strange for me to think that this weekend me and my husband passed that milestone together. I don't think there is another person on this planet who is more perfectly suited to be my husband. He is a terrible joke-teller, a fantastic cook and my best friend. To celebrate, me and the hubs escaped to Cannon Beach, Oregon. We made last minute reservations at The Ocean Lodge and spent the weekend beach combing, window shopping and eating (pizza, fudge and australian licorice!). I couldn't believe how warm it was on Saturday and how rainy it got on Sunday. We agreed it would be best if we indulged in ity-bity vacations more often.

 

 

 

HUSBANDS & THE HOME

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Something I really looked forward to before I got married was being able to decorate my own house for the first time. I couldn't wait to go to antique stores and thrift shops to find potential furniture. I have to confess, I'm a bit of a decorating nerd. At the age of seven, I would run home from school to watch Martha Stewart. I loved her classic and clean decorating style. I even begged my mom for her magazine subscription for my eight birthday. By the age of ten, I was collecting paint chips and drawing floor plans for my parents, in hopes that they would re-decorate (and apparently re-construct) our home. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that my husband has opinions on how he would like his home to look like. My husband hated anything that looked like it was in the final stages of decomposing, while I thought antique was rather charming. Since our tastes in furniture were so different, we decided on some general ground rules for decorating:

[Make a list] Typically my husband and I discuss projects we want to accomplish together. This discussion usually leads to a list of thing we want to purchase for our home. This is a great tool for me, especially when I get to a store and find that I love everything I see. I'm pretty quick to forget why I'm at the store if I don't have a list on hand.  It's also good to have a clear idea of what you want your space to look like.

[Do a lap around the store] I always want to buy the things I fall in love with as soon as possible, even if they're out of my price range or weren't on my list.  More often than not, I've regretted purchases that I made in a heartbeat. Something I practice now is doing a lap around the store before hitting the register. It gives me time to think before making any rash decisions. This is especially wise when you're at an antique store or flea market, where you can't return items you purchase.

[Keep receipts]  You won't know if the husband will love that pink floral comforter as much as you do, so keep your receipts handy. It's also nice to see how much a decorating project ended up costing you at the end.

[Return it] Whether you got it from your wedding registry and never use it, or you decided you don't love an item as much as you initially thought you did, don't leave it hanging out in your storage closet. It takes up room in a small apartment and keeps your funds from being used on things you need.

[Make choices together] My husband claims he hates going shopping with me, but I've learned that this is simply a front he puts up to make himself feel more manly. He loves going shopping when he's clued in on what we're shopping for and he knows his opinion actually counts.

What are some tips you have for decorating together?

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

 

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I thought I'd chat a little about my newly discovered knowledge on the topic of marriage, more specifically my expectations about marriage before I was a married gal and what I came to discover after I got hitched. Here were some of my bigger misconceptions on marriage.

[Marriage is easy] Our engagement and wedding planning were wildly stressful. Our ceremony location had double-booked our day, a volcano threatened our Italian honeymoon and a rainy forecast was looming over our entire wedding weekend. I was sure that no stress could compare to that of wedding planning. Then I got married and realized rather quickly how much more work the marriage part was. On top of managing a new household dynamic (me and my husband didn't live together before we got married) and figuring out finances, I had to deal with all the baggage me and my husband brought into the marriage like my sassiness and my husband's stubbornness, which only seemed to have been quadrupled after the "I do's". I found the most difficult part of being married is seeing your negative attributes brought into light and having to deal with them directly. It's very hard to hide those attributes (and the fact that you're not changing them) from the person you spend all your time with.

[I know what it's about] My husband and I took premarital counseling where we were equipped to deal with a plethora of issues that could potentially come up in our marriage. Although we had all these phenomenal tools, our actual practice with them was fairly limited. We were confused when issues would come up in our marriage and it would take a week to deal with them all because we didn't use the tools we knew about from the start. I found that just because I knew what marriage was about, did not mean I was an expert on marriage. The saying 'practice makes perfect' really applies here.

[Marriage is so romantic] I think Hollywood really messed people over on this one. Marriage is the most romantic thing ever, but it has been portrayed as being romantic always, which really isn't so. There's nothing romantic about doing laundry and writing up a budget for the month. My husband may not always try to surprise me with flowers at work and vacations and it's only worse when I'm expecting him to. A sad example would be when a few months into our marriage, my husband called to let me know that he'll be leaving work early because he's feeling sick. I thought he was being clever, leaving work early to surprise me with a romantic home-cooked meal. I was sorely disappointed when I came come to find my husband lying in bed with a fever.  Pathetic, right? Expecting marriage to be romantic (I also call this being rather selfish) made me miss a lot of opportunities to make my husbands life more delightful (I call this being self-less).

Were you disappointed by any of the expectations you had going into marriage? How did you get past these expectations?

THE WEEK BEFORE MY WEDDING.

I just realized that me and my husband are coming up on our one year anniversary (!!!!) whaaaaa? It feels like since I've gotten married, time has flown by twice as fast. When I was single, or dating and especially when I was engaged, time seems to be measured by when I'd see my soon-to-be other half next, so as you can imagine, time crept by very slowly. When I got married, there was no longer this notion of waiting and time stopped being slow. It was awesome. 

Me and the hubs were being all nostalgic today, remembering what we were doing and what we were thinking the Tuesday before our wedding. I had just worked my last day at the office for a really long while and we were waiting for our airline to let us know if we'd even be able to fly to Italy for our honeymoon (remember when that pesky Icelandic volcano erupted last year and no one was allowed to fly?). We were a little more than stressed, but we promised each other that no matter how crazy the months, weeks and days leading up to our wedding were, we will forget all about it on May 15th.

Here is me and the man today. I hear some of our friends lost a lot of money betting that we wouldn't be together a year later. I'm sure they were kidding though. I think this week would be the perfect opportunity to chat about marriage instead of the typical wedding stuff I'm used to.  What do you think?

 

Weekend Festivities!

 Happiest of Mondays to you all. I had an exhausting and wonderful weekend. I spent all Saturday prepping for my big sister's birthday party that I hosted at our tiny apartment, made even tinier by 20 of our friends crowding in the kitchen. Besides the fact that we felt like sardines, we had a great time. On Sunday, me and the hubs tried stealthily cooking brunch for my mom at her house while she out. We were unsuccessful to some degree because A.) we didn't finish by the time she arrived home and B.) we nearly set her house on fire (whoops!). But anyway, it was great fun and everything was yummy. How was your weekend?

 

HAPPY MONDAY

This weekend I partook in some serious birthday shenanigans compliments of my older sister (who's birthday is May 7th) and our good friend Andrew (his birthday is May 23rd). They decided to drag a few of their friends on a hiking trip Saturday morning. I knew I was a tad out of shape but this hike seriously showed me what was up. The hike was uphill the ENTIRE way to. Thankfully, I was determined to prove to my husband that I am not as much of a couch potato as he likes to think and he even complimented on my lack of complaining throughout the hike!

 

birthday boy, me and the hubs. 

the views were breathtaking.

 

 

We got to the top in less than two hours because we were afraid we weren't going to make it back in time for our dinner reservation. I gotta say though, mixing nature and good folks together is one of the most enjoyable blessings in life. agreed? 

P.S: I've got more pictures to share!