Category Archives: getting out of dodge

fabric covered lamp shade and my new orleans bachelorette

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What do you think of this spray painted thrift store lamp base and Bettina fabric covered shade that I did for my office?

Do you love it as much as I do?  To read about how I did it, please hop on over to Tiffany’s awesomely creative blog Living Savvy where I am guest posting today as part of her Spray Painter’s Anonymous series.

In other news, I’ve spent this week nursing a cold that I caught at the tale end of my bachelorette party in New Orleans last weekend.  It was well worth it, and I had an amazing time with my bridesmaids…but let me tell you…as I near my 30th birthday it’s painfully apparent that I’m getting too old for three day benders!  I’d love to hit up New Orleans again, but maybe with less drinking next time :) .

We rented a condo in the French Quarter right off of Bourbon street, and I HIGHLY recommend it.  It was much cheaper for our group of 6 than staying in a hotel plus we had an awesome balcony, beautiful digs and all of the amenities that come with a hotel combined with the comforts of home.  It was perfect!

My bridesmaids came up with a couple of games to keep me on my toes.  They had Devin answer a bunch of questions about me prior to the trip (sneaky!) and I had to guess how he answered them.  If I got it right, they all took a shot…if I got it wrong, I took a shot.  I still came out winning in the end, but let’s just say I drank more than I expected to :) .  The second game was to find other people named Devin in New Orleans.  1 point if it was a girl, 2 points if it was a guy, 3 points if it was spelled the same way with an “i” and 4 points if it was a “hot” Devin.  Wouldn’t you know, the doorman at Pat O’Briens our first night out was named Devin…AND he even let me keep his name tag!  Best souvenir ever…and I won that game :)

Add to that a great jazz show at Preservation Hall, private walking tour of the quarter, a rum distillery tour, shopping in the French Market, taking the streetcar to the Garden District and Lafayette Cemetery….

…mix in some adult beverages at Pat O’Brien’s, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, French 75 and Coquette…

…plus dancing and all around revelry on Bourbon Street and Frenchman Street…

…and THEN top it off with all of the delicious food we ate at Cafe Du Monde, NOLA, Johnny’s Po-Boys and Cochon among others…

…and you get a pretty amazing weekend with the best Maid of Honor (my sister) and bridesmaids a bride could ever ask for.

I’ll leave it to Instagram to sum it up in photos for y’all :) .

homegoods, camping in the rain and my first 5k

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This past Friday afternoon, I took a trip to Mecca, also known as HomeGoods.  Because really, can you think of a better way to start the weekend?  Like most trips I take there, I didn’t really have anything specific in mind that I wanted or needed.  Though also like most trips I take there, I left with something that I hadn’t realized I needed beforehand, but I couldn’t leave without.

If you don’t already know, I love quatrefoil patterned ANYTHING.  I also love the color gray.  So when I saw these Cynthia Rowley towels, I just couldn’t pass them up.

For anyone interested, they came in other colors too (cream, light green, maybe orange? if I remember right).

Then on the way home, I decided to stop at our local Salvation Army just in case there were any inexpensive pieces of furniture in need of a makeover.  As if I don’t already have enough projects to work on!  When I pulled up, what did I see sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store, but this super ugly little table marked “$5.00 As Is.”

I looked it over and everything seemed to be in decent shape, and it’s fairly heavy so no particle board on this baby.  As I expected, the second I brought it home, Devin declared “there is no place for that table in this house.”  Ha.  We’ll see.  The second I laid eyes on it, a variety of “after” images flashed through my head.  Especially since I’d recently read this post of Ashley’s where she made over a similar looking table.

Admittedly, I sort of agree with Devin that the style wouldn’t really fit in our home, but that wasn’t about to stop me from buying it and making it over anyway because FIVE DOLLAR TABLE HELLO.  We’ll see how it turns out, then at that point, I’ll decide where its permanent home should be.

On Saturday we headed down to Santa Cruz with the dogs to camp overnight in preparation for the She.Is.Beautiful 5K that I was running on Sunday morning. While I was excited for my first race, the gloomy, rainy weather really did its best to bring us down.  We spent most of Saturday trying to stay out of the rain and exploring the Aptos/Capitola/Santa Cruz area where we stumbled upon an adorable store called Warmth Company.  Look at this place and tell me you don’t want every single thing in there.

While many things were overpriced in my opinion, there were some accessories that weren’t too bad, and we ended up leaving with this Dash & Albert rug that’s perfect for our entryway.

I love the colors, and it makes a really nice impression when you first walk in the front door…so much more so than the drab beige rug we had there previously.

Afterwards, we finally headed back to the New Brighton State Beach campground and set up shop for the night.  While the circumstances weren’t ideal (muddy dog paws, wet pants, rain rain RAIN), we made the most of it.  At 3AM I woke up to the rain POUNDING on the roof of our van (more on the RallyWagon in a future post!) and prayed that PLEASEGODLETTHERAINSTOPBY8AM because the thought of running in that torrential downpour really bummed me out.

Lo, someone up there listened because when we woke up the next morning the rain had stopped!  It was a beautiful course, along the ocean the entire time, and I ended up coming in at 29:37…five whole minutes faster than my goal time!

Please forgive the facial expression…I have no idea.

On that note, here’s to another week!