Succulent should be a dirty word

Pinterest strikes again. This time in the vision of a succulent garden. I've been eyeing these adorable little glass spheres of unneedy greenery for over a year now... Never could find a reason to pull the trigger... But now in the bleak, bleakity bleakness of the Cincinnati winter I want some green in my life. And those fiddle leaf fern trees are just way the hell too expensive. Trendy trees are definitely something is never thought I'd be craving...

Mmmm figgy fern goodness

So yesterday I was running errands and headed to Home Depot. While waiting for my Cherry Cola paint selection for an accent wall I'm painting without permission in my apt, I wandered over to the plant section. The plant section in Ohio is approximately the size of a guest bathroom. Why? Because only garden assholes like me think they should be gardening when it's below zero outside. On that note I recently had a patch of grass delivered in more or less a pizza box for my puppy to poo in peace in. She wants nothing of it, and as such I now have a box o' turf on my porch, collecting snow...

Pre-porch... that would be a glass full of a random dog's yella snow.
Things get weird in Cincy.

I digress. I found some cute succulents. (What is a succubis? I know it's from some kiddy thing and I can't remember... But I want to say it every time I write succulent...) I then went to Michael's and found a mediocre glass bowl and some even more mediocre artsy fartsy pebbles and stones. I carried around a miniature dwarf in my basket for a hot minute until I remembered that I'm supposed to be hiding my Lord of the Rings affection from the public until my Frodo costume arrives for Comicon. Realizing the pebbles may not be enough, I bought some Spanish moss too. Which is absurd to have to pay for since I grew up with the stuff being a nuisance full of chiggers... Makes for great costume pubes though.

I got my goodies home and realized I'd made a whoopsie. Uh oh. They need dirt?! I've seen these things chilling in nothing but air! Clearly my green thumb and I are at a crossroads...

I know what you're thinking - they're going to let you procreate and care for a human at some point in the very distant future? But how human are babies, really? Much like a succulent they just need small amounts of food and daylight and someone to change their soil. See? I'm prepared.

After some prodding and digging and breaking of small plant arms, here's what I've got.

Pretty lame. I should've gotten a fish. And the gnome.

For added charm, I have been using a nettipot to water.  Straight from my nose to my little cacti friends.

Moving is the Devil

Seriously.  If the Devil lived in a box, that box would be buried somewhere inside my new apartment right now.  

I. Hate. Moving.

My current entry way.  Welcome home Captain Hoarder.

 I have literally moved at least once a year since the age of 16.  16 times in 12 years, actually:  

• Boarding school dorm room 1
• Huntsville, AL for summer
• Boarding school dorm room 2
• Home on Hilton Head for summer
• UPenn dorm
• Emory houses 1 through 3
• UGA apartments 1 and 2
• Winston-Salem apartment for a whopping 6 mo
• Atlanta apartments 1 through 4
• Atlanta house
• Cincinnati

You'd think I'd have this down pat by now.  False.  So false.  This obsessive moving was mostly due to me forgetting that you can, in fact, re-sign a lease rather than finding a new roomie and floor plan every time.  I also tend to be the girl who will just live with anyone.  Someone I met in the leasing office while I was signing?  Done it.  Someone I had heard came from the same school I went to and was also named Rachel so therefore was likely fantastic?  Done it.  Randoms online?  Done it.  I lived with a dude who turned out to be a drug dealer.  I've lived with a girl from India who couldn't drive at the age of 32- so I taught her in a rental car and we hit poles, curbs, animals and guard rails until she passed her test. 

I've lived with girls, guys, friends, coworkers, strangers.  Some turned out great, others not so much.  

Now I appear to have at least landed myself a consistent, mildly normal human being as a roommate.  But this moving thing.  Good lord.  Here we have at least secured a spot in a bad ass location in the middle of this up and coming area called the Banks, right on the river and surrounded by brand new bars and restaurants.  I'm 3 blocks from the Bengals stadium and 2 blocks from the Reds.  However, even this little extravaganza will be up in 20 months, and therefore be the longest I've lived anywhere since I could legally operate a motor vehicle.  

This is a pano off my balcony - Bengals on left, Reds on right.  Pretty sweet!

And yet, every time I move it's the same cluster banana reaction of "oh my god, where did all this shit come from?!?!"  I think I have single handedly ensured the ongoing profitability of Goodwill.  I also have a good bit of Jew left in me and have managed to accumulate a lot of things for free, which tends to lend itself to my hoarding abilities.  

This move was no different.  We downsized a good bit coming here and I thought packing a 10 x 20 storage unit full of grand pianos, golf carts, and brand new china would do the trick.  Turns out 2 blenders, 2 crock pots and 68 t-shirts dating from 1996 on still made the trip.  (Yes, 1996.  My mathlete captain shirt will never see die.)  We can't have a grill here (shed a Green Egg tear), but we made sure to bring lots of tools, just in case someone else does!  And P's very own grill apron, with this emblazoned across the front:

It's amazing the crap that piles up even in a year.  And considering my latest purchasing frenzy has been due to the clearly necessary new collection of winter gear... it doesn't look like we're exactly heading in the right direction...

Goodbye Pretty 1st Home

In the last 18 months Hubster and I have gotten engaged and married, taken new jobs (me) and promotions and bought and listed our first home.  No big deal.  :) 

Many lessons learned, patience gained and adventures had.

It took 15 months of hard work and serious Pinteresting to turn this puppy into our perfect home.  Super hard to let it go, but we are excited for big adventures in Cincinnati and looking forward to no yard work for a couple of years!!!

I'm going to miss my gorgeous turquoise walls most! 

JK this cutie stays with us!

Painting beds - seemed like such a good idea when I first started.  This was so hard! 

We're keeping the laundry room barn door that Hubster built - it is so gorgeous and one of a kind!

Lanterns all spruced up and styled much better than the original! 

My gorgeous family piano and gallery of my brother's beautiful photographs - loved this corner of our bedroom so much.

We just hope the next people who live here love it as much as we have and find even more fun projects to make it their own as well!

Spring Springith!

My tulips are so close to opening! I can't wait for them to say hello!

And with all this ridiculous rain we've been having (60 of the last 70 days apparently!) the adorable umbrella ring holder from my little brother seems like a perfect window ornament!


I can't wait to break out my fun dresses and wedges! Hopefully in time for my bachelorette NEXT WEEKEND!!!

DIY: Lantern Wall Display

While perusing Pottery Barn for some wedding registry ideas and came across this awesome wall hanging of lanterns.  

It was styled a little busy, but gorgeous just the same.  Too bad PB style costs my mortgage, that bad boy was almost $500 worth of lanterns and curtain rods!

I rounded up the lanterns at a Kohl's sale for $12-$20 each, the curtain rod at a Hancock furniture sale for $15 and hit up Lowe's for some really thick fisherman and spent a goofy Saturday morning trying to figure out what the hell to do with it.

I found a great guide online, that shows animated how-tos for each of the knots at AnimatedKnots.com.  Here are some we picked out... mostly due to frustration with the purty ones. Monkey Fist?  Right.  Just after I build my own yacht to tie it with.

This was a joke.  Now I know why people on Etsy charge like $20 for a mini one.
Fist fail!

Initial styling.  Ha!  The radio is for my pup, who likes to jam out to Bieber and a little One Direction, if she's feeling frisky, while we're at work.

Here they are all lit up.  Style just ain't my thing with this idea.  I need help, big time.  

I think I need to pull the lanterns up a bit?  

Disaster.  Suggestions, please.

Hosting: Stock the Bar Party

A couple of weeks ago I co-hosted a Stock the Bar for a couple getting married a few weeks after P and I are due down the aisle.  I've talked about how fun it is to have someone I can bridezilla my heart out to, that totally gets the ridiculousness of negotiating over linens and flowers and such, trying on dresses multiple times to get the right alterations, feeling up a hundred kinds of paper and design to find "the invite"...  It's been crazy but so nice to have a partner in crime!  


I couldn't have been more excited to play a part in throwing the happy couple a little shower to get them started on stocking their house and bar and kicking off the multitude of festivities coming their way!

My co-zilla has the cutest color combo picked out - yellow and gray, super chic and trendy yet classy.  

It was a lot of fun finding fun ways to incorporate their colors into the party, starting with the shower invite I DIY'd here.

My co-hosterita and I went through a bunch of ideas to find fun gifts and favors, which ended up including a traditional bar set, paper goods and these adorable Mr. and Mrs. glasses: 

For food we kept it really simple and toothpick/finger friendly:
Slow cooker meatballs
Pulled pork from the bride's fav spot: Fat Matt's
Spinach dip
Rotel-velveeta dip
Salted caramel cheesecakes (I made mini ones in a mini muffin pan!)

We toasted the future newlyweds with some really cute and fun S'mores Shooters:

Wish I'd had my blowtorch to light up those mini mallows!

DIY straw flags (in Word!)

Paper straws, dishwashable stadium cups and cocktail napkins featuring
the new couple's monogram (all from Etsy)

A chalkboard welcome!

Balloons floated around dangling the couple's engagement photos at eye level 

Signature mojito cocktail and water jugs
Why do lemons float and not limes?!

The spread!

The adorable happy couple opening their gifts!

Backyard Blunderoo

Last month we babysat this little guy for our friends for a couple weeks while they visited family overseas:

Finnley loved having her boyfriend around to snuggle and "slow motion break dance" (P's terminology).  Mashi is the cutest, cuddliest little thing ever, but homeboy had some seriously spicy pee.   Soon after his fuzzy butt left our abode there were some yellow circular patches of grass out front.  This happens from Finn too every now and then where the grass goes yellow and then it comes back, no big deal.

Well, it's been a month and now our grass looks like this:

I was commenting about the spicyness of the little pup's wizz for the hundredth time and asking P to please call the lawn company when he goes "Hmmm.  Yeah... I was hoping that would've grown back by now..."  

Pause.  

Stink eye/eyebrow raise combo from me.

Pause.  

"I mayyybe sprayed weed killer where I shouldn't have... Whoops."


Poor Mashi, innocently taking the blame and getting his reputation tarnished at the same time!

DIY: Sliding Barn Door

The very first project we wanted to tackle when we got our home under contract came from a Pinterest post, shocker, of a gorgeous indoor barn door. We have a long boring hallway leading to our master with our laundry room halfway down. Perfect spot for some rustic chic! 

I researched my butt off of course and found some really cool modern hardware and farmhouse style doors. 'Spensive!  After drooling over and attempting to justify some fabulous options the fiancé had a revelation - reclaimed Georgia wood!  

While we didn't get the wood from here, P's family owns a farm in South Georgia originally built in the 1780s (not a typo) that gave us the inspiration to DIY with the reclaimed wood.  A new house has been built on the property, but the original home and barn still stand, one of the only in the area having survived the wrath of Sherman. A fact supposedly true only because the original great-great-great-ancestor that lived there was a "hell of a hostess" and actually had Sherman and his men stay on her property for a couple of weeks.  Her hospitality spared the family their home while the rest of Georgia burned to a crisp.  She buried all of her good china and silver, etc. when the troops came by, much of which was rediscovered during construction of the new home in the 1900s.  Pretty snazzy story!

Back to the DIY bit. We ended up purchasing the hardware from a guy on etsy for $200.  He also sells doors that look pretty cool or the whole package for around $600 or so.

P was itching for a man-project so he decided he would DIY the thing from scratch.  A lot of leveling, sanding, and staining and a whole bunch of new curse words he didn't learn from me later, we have this gorgeous door!  Some of the wood has carpenter bee holes, which I love.  And you can see the original round blade cuts from whatever crazy machine made the wood hundreds of years ago!

Staining the bad boy.  Check out the solid 15" slats of walnut!

Hadn't removed the real door yet!  Ha!

Looking down at the ground slider

Check out the cool old-school outlet!