Thanks a Latte!

Yes, horrible, horrible pun. I know. I just couldn't help it. You see, last night I came home to find a little bit of this happening in my living room:

A Mismatched Bedroom

Okay friends, I am in desperate need of some interior design advice. Because I have the world' shortest attention span I decided to make a quick change in our bedroom while simultaneously organizing the kitchen. Woo, productivity! As I mentioned last week, the mister and I recently upgraded our bedroom set. And when I say I upgrade, I mean upgrade. We ordered the king set, which meant a new mattress, new sheets, the works. We did neglect purchasing a few important pieces, including our duvet cover. Which means that we've been using a queen sized comforter on a king bed. Not ideal.

We never meant for it to go on as long as it did. The problem was that we just couldn't decide on a pattern. My husband and I have very different tastes and we literally spent months poring over all of our options. Every once in a while I would get rage-y at the amount of time we spent arguing over a freakin' duvet cover and neither of us would speak of it for a few weeks. Then one of us (me) would bring it up again so we would spend days searching for something we both liked and utterly fail. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Finally, finally, finally we found something (on Overstock of all places) that seemed to appeal to both of us. Before one of us could change our minds I purchased the damn thing and now here we are.

Five for Friday: Week of January 12th

Okay so it's Sunday, not Friday, but things have been a little crazy around here and I completely forgot to set this post up on Friday. Whoops! Better late than never, right?

1. You drove me to my doctor appointment.
2. You were so, so supportive of me when I received some bad news.
3. You let me have some "me" time when I had a rough week.
4. You sat through a "Boy Meets World" marathon with me.
5. You cleaned the apartment while I was away.

Simplify: Three of Thirty

Well, due to some unforeseen shipping shenanigans my latest kitchen update post has been delayed. Can't wait to share that story with you. Instead I've got another 30 before 30 update for ya because I finally simplified something tangible in my life this weekend!

I dedicated my Saturday afternoon to cleaning out my dresser and closet. Exciting right?! Not really, but I will be sharing photos of my hideous wardrobe so I hope you enjoy that (and don't use it as material to submit to What Not to Wear).

First up was the dresser. This thing is massive and completely full of my clothes. Jason and I bought a brand spankin' new bedroom set over the summer and I immediately claimed the dresser for myself. Since the kid owns like three shirts and a pair of jeans he didn't really complain. And I was nice enough to let him take the four drawer chest so everybody wins!

Anyways, I noticed my dresser was starting to overflow a bit...

Check out those awesome stars and moons PJs in the bottom right drawer. You know I keep those around for special date nights with the husband. Hubba, hubba.

Finding Kitchen Inspiration

So it's clear that I need to make a change in my kitchen. The question is how? I started stalking small space solutions and I think some ideas are starting to come together. The biggest thing I've noticed is that it's time to go vertical. We have two fairly large, empty walls that we're just not taking advantage of.

Something as simple as a few white shelves could help alleviate some of our storage concerns:

Image via Remodelista

Five for Friday: Week of January 5th

1. You brought home some new beers for me to try.
2. You hung out with our friends all day watching the playoffs, even though you hate football.
3. You comforted me when I received some sad news.
4. You made me feel awesome by thanking me for all of the hard work I've been doing.
5. You sacrificed video game time to hang out with me when I was feeling bummed out.

Cooking Up a New Kitchen

I am insane.

Okay, yes, we all knew that. But I am really insane because out of all the rooms in this apartment I have decided to tackle the kitchen first. If there was one room I could completely remodel it would be the kitchen. Now don't get me wrong, it's quite a lovely kitchen and much better than the galley style kitchens you see in many apartments, but it's lacking one key feature. Adequate cabinet/counter space.

Small Moves

I have been doing some soul searching recently. Mostly on my life goals and on the future of this blog. I am a Planner with a capital P and when things don't jive with whatever "plan" I've got going on in my head things get ugly. A few things have not been going according to my "plan" and it's been a bit difficult to deal with it, to say the least.

The most upsetting thing for me right now is the fact that we will most likely not be purchasing a home as soon as I had anticipated. This has led me to feel trapped, frustrated and downright depressed. I hate where we live and I absolutely despise renting. Home ownership has always been a really important goal for me and now that I am married and the wedding is over, it just seemed natural to start looking into purchasing a home with the hubs.

Unfortunately, life rarely abides by simple plans like this and there are just too many factors in our lives right now; factors that continually remind us that this might not be the best time for us to buy. And so, I took some time to think about it and mope about it and I'm ready to make some changes.

Part of my frustration stems from the fact that I never really considered this apartment our home. We moved here right after our engagement and in the back of my mind this place was always just a temporary solution until the wedding. I never actually settled in. Now that it looks like we will be here a bit longer than I thought I am determined to go through our apartment room by room making whatever changes I can as tenant to make this place really feel like home.

So buckle in cuz I'm about to show you the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly of apartment living.

Five for Friday: Week of December 29th

1. You came out to dinner with our friends.
2. You helped me get ready for our kick-ass New Year's Eve party.
3. And then cleaned up the place when everyone left and I was too tired to stand.
4. You took me out to see The Hobbit and didn't even bat an eye when I bought a gigundo box of popcorn.
5. You were encouraging when I was feeling down about my shitty student loan situation.

New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year again. That time of year when everyone you know is vowing to be a better person while munching on celery sticks and walking as slow as possible on every god damn treadmill in the gym. I've never been one for making New Year's resolutions. The tradition just never made any sense to me. I get the whole clean start and all, but why do so many people choose to make changes on New Year's Day when there are 364 perfectly other great days to make a positive change in your life.

Anyways, I've already got my 30 before 30 list, but I've decided to give this resolution thing a shot. I'm keeping it short and simple and have three little things I would like to improve about myself: